Bihać fire, 7 March 2025 Bihać
The fire started on 7 March 2025 in Bihać, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 693 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 89th largest in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 520 with a page). Number 12 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2025, of 65.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.6 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
- 693ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 7 Mar 2025 – 10 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 7 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 28MW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.2 mm on 11 Mar.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 278 ha in 2016, 118 ha in 2020, 105 ha in 2021, 585 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 668 ha that had burned before.
- 585 ha Bihać fire, March 2022 3,528 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 278 ha Bihać fire, December 2016 316 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 118 ha Bihać fire, February 2020 184 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 101 ha Bihać fire, March 2021 101 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Bihać where it started690 ha reached on 7 Mar0.7 %
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 forest58 %
- Other natural land28 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland14 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Mar | 15.4 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 8 Mar | 15.2 °C | 20 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 9 Mar | 14.2 °C | 44 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 10 Mar | 11.1 °C | 56 % | 78 km/h | 4.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 11 Mar after | 11.3 °C | 63 % | 49 km/h | 27.2 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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 5 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 24 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 · 10Every 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 · 4 km away
- 4,086 haOpćina Gračac5 August 2017 · 6 days · 22 km away
- 4,225 haOpćina Gračac21 March 2022 · 6 days · 23 km away
- 4,959 haOpćina Gračac5 April 2020 · 6 days · 30 km away
- 8,657 haBosansko GrahovoAugust 2026 · 2 days · 36 km away
- 3,936 haOpćina Gračac22 March 2022 · 6 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bihać fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 March 2025 and 10 March 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 693 hectares (6.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bihać (690 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 15.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 78 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class Low.
- 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.