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BA · Bosnia & Herzegovina · –

Bijeljina fire, October 2026 Bijeljina

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2026, 12:46 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 16 October 2026 in Bijeljina, Bosnia & Herzegovina. It was active for 5 days, with 11 heat detections and an area with fire of about 154 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across a single municipality.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Area with fire
≈ 154ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
5days
16 Oct 2026 – 20 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Oct
2026
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
11MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Oct20 Oct
20 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

16 Oct 2026 · 3 MW · 1 18 Oct 2026 · 9 MW · 3 19 Oct 2026 · 6 MW · 2 20 Oct 2026 · 26 MW · 6
16 Oct 18 Oct 19 Oct 20 Oct

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

23°high
31km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 21 Oct.

What happened to each town

  1. Bijeljina where it started
    140 ha reached on 16 Oct
    0.2 %

Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
16 Oct 17.5 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 12
17 Oct 17.2 °C 46 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
18 Oct 21.4 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Oct 21.9 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
20 Oct 23.2 °C 49 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
21 Oct after 23.9 °C 46 % 29 km/h 4.8 mm Moderate 18

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 11.5, a minimum humidity of 43% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 11.5
Minimum humidity 43 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Novi Pazar City fire, February 2020
124 ha 2 days FWI 10.7 Min. humidity 42 % 209 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.1 mm on 28 Feb.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
204 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 18 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (154 ha against a median of 204 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 2 days.

In 5 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.3 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

4.8 mmfirst rain
21 Octthe day after it ended
31km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 20 Oct, and on 21 Oct 4.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 18, with a median of 4.3 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 9 Oct 2026
After · 27 Oct 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 17 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1055 µg/m³
Optical depth0.24
12 Oct14 Oct16 Oct18 Oct20 Oct
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 11Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bijeljina fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 16 October 2026 to 20 October 2026 (5 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 154 hectares with fire (1.5 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bijeljina (140 ha, 0.2 %).
Is the Bijeljina fire still active?
No fire detections since 20 Oct 2026, 12:46 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.2 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 204 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 5 of 18, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.3 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 123 · 112.

How we know this
  • No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 154 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
  • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 11 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.