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Bitola fire, September 2019 Општина Битола · Bitola, Mogila

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2019, 00:12 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2019 in Bitola, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 568 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 13 in North Macedonia in 2019, of 77.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.4 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
568ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
16 Sept 2019 – 18 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
16 Sept
2019
Heat detections
32
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
226MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

161718

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
35km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 19 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Bitola Општина Битола 85,164 inhabitants · 9.4 km from the town where it started
    389 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.5 %
  2. Mogila Општина Могила 5,283 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town
    180 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.7 %

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

  • Agricultural areas60 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
  • Broadleaved forest6.2 %
  • Mixed forest4.8 %
  • Other natural land1.4 %

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)
16 Sept 29.8 °C 21 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Sept 30.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Sept 28.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Sept after 24.3 °C 36 % 25 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2019
After · 25 Sept 2019

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 · 32Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bitola fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2019 and 18 September 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 568 hectares (5.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bitola (389 ha, 0.5 %); Mogila (180 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.0 km of Mogila. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of North Macedonia (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: 193 · 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
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 193 · 112.

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.