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Chashka fire, 27 August 2017 Општина Чашка · Chashka, Dolneni

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2017, 11:16 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2017 in Chashka, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 442 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Vardar since 2016 (of 49 with a page). Number 13 in North Macedonia in 2017, of 44.

Burnt area
442ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
27 Aug 2017 – 28 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
27 Aug
2017
Heat detections
32
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
190MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

28 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug28 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

27 Aug 2017 · 132 MW · 13 28 Aug 2017 · 248 MW · 19
27 Aug 28 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
40km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 29 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Chashka Општина Чашка 7,942 inhabitants · 21.1 km from the town where it started
    384 ha reached on 27 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 12.6 km from the town
    58 ha reached on 27 Aug
    0.1 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland64 %
  • Broadleaved forest29 %
  • Other natural land6.8 %

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 Aug 31.5 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Aug 29.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Aug after 21.6 °C 42 % 31 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2017
After · 4 Sept 2017

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 28 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1027 µg/m³
25262728293031
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 · 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 Chashka fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2017 and 28 August 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 442 hectares (4.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chashka (384 ha, 0.5 %); Dolneni (58 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.6 km of Dolneni. 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.