Bihać fire, 4 April 2020 Bihać
The fire started on 4 April 2020 in Bihać, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,345 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 44th largest in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 520 with a page). Number 12 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2020, of 183.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.3 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
- 1,345ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 4 Apr 2020 – 9 Apr 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Apr
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 114
- in a single hotspot: 27 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 638MW
- 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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.7 mm on 14 Apr.
This area had burned before
33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 449 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Bihać where it started1,341 ha reached on 4 Apr1.4 %
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
- Broadleaved forest51 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland27 %
- Mixed forest19 %
- Agricultural areas1.5 %
- Coniferous forest1.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Apr | 11.0 °C | 30 % | 70 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 5 Apr | 13.1 °C | 29 % | 74 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 6 Apr | 15.5 °C | 26 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 7 Apr | 15.3 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 8 Apr | 15.8 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 9 Apr | 18.5 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 10 Apr after | 18.7 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 11 Apr after | 18.7 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 12 Apr after | 19.2 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 13 Apr after | 16.8 °C | 34 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 14 Apr after | 9.6 °C | 68 % | 54 km/h | 18.7 mm | Very low 0 |
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.
Detections table · 114Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,528 haBihać20 March 2022 · 8 days · 9 km away
- 3,515 haBosansko Grahovo22 March 2022 · 8 days · 25 km away
- 4,086 haOpćina Gračac5 August 2017 · 6 days · 27 km away
- 4,225 haOpćina Gračac21 March 2022 · 6 days · 28 km away
- 3,936 haOpćina Gračac22 March 2022 · 6 days · 30 km away
- 4,959 haOpćina Gračac5 April 2020 · 6 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bihać fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 April 2020 and 9 April 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,345 hectares (13.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bihać (1,341 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 18.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bosnia & Herzegovina (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: 123 · 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 ADM3 (Public Domain). 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.