BERCA fire, March 2022 BERCA, CERNATESTI, SCORTOASA
The fire started on 21 March 2022 in BERCA, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 273 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
Number 45 in Romania in 2022, of 186.
The power measured by the satellite is low (9.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 273ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 21 Mar 2022 – 21 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Mar
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 14
- in a single hotspot: 10 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 104MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
BERCA where it started143 ha reached on 21 Mar1.9 %
-
60 ha reached on 21 Mar1.2 %
-
52 ha reached on 21 Mar0.5 %
-
17 ha reached on 21 Mar0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Agricultural areas90 %
- Broadleaved forest9.4 %
- Artificial surfaces0.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 43 %
- LIC Vulcanii Noroioși de la Pâclele Mari si Pâclele Mici ROSAC0272
Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Mar | 12.0 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 22 Mar after | 15.0 °C | 23 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 23 Mar after | 15.6 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 24 Mar after | 20.8 °C | 7 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 25 Mar after | 11.6 °C | 25 % | 52 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 26 Mar after | 16.9 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 27 Mar after | 18.1 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 28 Mar after | 17.1 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 29 Mar after | 20.8 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 30 Mar after | 22.0 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 31 Mar after | 19.7 °C | 32 % | 45 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 24 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 14Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the BERCA fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 21 March 2022 and 21 March 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 273 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: BERCA (143 ha, 1.9 %); CERNATESTI (60 ha, 1.2 %); SCORTOASA (52 ha, 0.5 %); BECENI (17 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 12.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Emergency number: 112
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.