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Burgas fire, July 2023 Бургас · Burgas

Out · last measured on 27 Jul 2023

The fire started on 24 July 2023 in Burgas, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 582 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Burgas since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 6 in Bulgaria in 2023, of 25.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Burgas · 2017Burgas · 2016Pomorie · 2016Burgas · 2023

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
582ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
24 Jul 2023 – 27 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Jul
2023
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

29°high
50km/h · peak gust
53%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016, 55 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (5.8 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Burgas Бургас 189,086 inhabitants · 8.6 km from the centre where it started
    584 ha
    1.0 %

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

  • Agricultural areas60 %
  • Other natural land39 %
  • Other land cover0.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
27 Jul 29.0 °C 53 % 50 km/h 3.3 mm Low 10
28 Jul after 26.1 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
29 Jul after 27.8 °C 49 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Jul after 27.8 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Jul after 26.4 °C 64 % 23 km/h 0.7 mm Low 10
1 Aug after 27.3 °C 63 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 13
2 Aug after 29.9 °C 53 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
3 Aug after 29.8 °C 60 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
4 Aug after 30.7 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
5 Aug after 28.5 °C 66 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Aug after 30.9 °C 50 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2023
After · 3 Aug 2023

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 26 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1040 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
252627282930
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Burgas fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 July 2023 to 27 July 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 July 2023 to 27 July 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 582 hectares (5.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Burgas (584 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Burgas and came within 8.6 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 53 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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: 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 July 2023 to 27 July 2023. No 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.

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 ADM2 (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.