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RO · Romania ·

Chilia Veche fire, August 2019 Chilia Veche

Out · last measured on 28 Aug 2019

The fire started on 28 August 2019 in Chilia Veche, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 146 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

This record is fire in the reed beds of the Danube Delta, not a forest fire. Thousands of hectares of reed burn in the delta every year, mostly between January and April, and many of these burns are deliberate. That is why it is left out of the fire rankings.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Holo Prystan · 2026Rasova · 2025Chilia Veche · 2022Chilia Veche · 2025

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
146ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
28 Aug 2019 – 28 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2019
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
29km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 66 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Chilia Veche 1,728 inhabitants · 7.9 km from the centre where it started
    146 ha reached on 22 Aug
    0.3 %

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

  • Other land cover93 %
  • Other natural land6.8 %

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)
28 Aug 31.4 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Aug after 30.4 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Aug after 28.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Aug after 29.3 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Sept after 31.2 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept after 31.9 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Sept after 32.7 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Sept after 22.5 °C 56 % 42 km/h 0.6 mm High 33
5 Sept after 25.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept after 26.3 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Sept after 29.4 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 41.5, a minimum humidity of 28% and 18 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 22.

FWI at the start 41.5
Minimum humidity 28 %
Days without rain 18
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Holo Prystan fire, June 2026
108 ha 24 days FWI 41.6 Min. humidity 27 % 225 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.8 mm on 21 Jul.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
240 ha
median area
5 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 22 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 146 ha against a median of 240 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 9 of 22, 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 3.0 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
29km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 22, with a median of 3.0 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 2019.
  • 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 · 21 Aug 2019
After · 4 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 27 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1032 µg/m³
26 Aug28 Aug30 Aug
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 Romania

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chilia Veche fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 28 August 2019 and 28 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 146 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chilia Veche (146 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Chilia Veche and came within 7.9 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 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (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 2019 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 240 ha; 5 % went past 1,000 ha. In 9 of 22, 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 3.0 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: 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 With cross-checks and a citable version

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 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 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.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

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 (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.