Bileća fire, August 2026 Bileća, Gacko
The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Bileća, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,021 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Republika Srpska since 2016 (of 391 with a page). Number 5 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2026, of 94.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Gacko · 2022Gacko · 2019Bileća · 2021Bileća · 2020
- Burnt area
- 4,021ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 12days
- 29 Aug 2026 – 9 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 279
- in a single hotspot: 50 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 213MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 11 Sept.
This area had burned before
57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 55 ha in 2016, 163 ha in 2017, 887 ha in 2019, 380 ha in 2020, 692 ha in 2021, 987 ha in 2022, 62 ha in 2023, 382 ha in 2024, 125 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,301 ha that had burned before.
- 867 ha Gacko fire, March 2022 1,475 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 850 ha Gacko fire, March 2019 913 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 402 ha Bileća fire, August 2021 418 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 216 ha Bileća fire, February 2020 216 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 191 ha Gacko fire, August 2024 553 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 126 ha Gacko fire, August 2017 157 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 119 ha Bileća fire, March 2020 188 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 119 ha Bileća fire, July 2022 150 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Bileća where it started2,200 ha reached on 4 Sept3.4 %
-
1,823 ha reached on 5 Sept2.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. 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.
What burned
- Broadleaved forest53 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub34 %
- Agricultural areas10 %
- Other natural land2.2 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.8 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 28.8 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Sept | 28.6 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Sept | 31.3 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Sept | 29.0 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Sept | 30.3 °C | 18 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Sept | 30.4 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Sept | 28.7 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Sept after | 28.7 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Sept after | 24.2 °C | 56 % | 50 km/h | 3.4 mm | Low 6 |
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 8 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 156 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 78: 5.2 times the WHO daily 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 · 279Every 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 Bileća fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (3 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 9 September 2026 (12 days from 29 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,021 hectares (40.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bileća (2,200 ha, 3.4 %); Gacko (1,823 ha, 2.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
- 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 · 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.
No changes 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 279 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.