Chiprovtsi fire, October 2019 Чипровци · Chiprovtsi
The fire started on 27 October 2019 in Chiprovtsi, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 882 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in Montana since 2016 (of 19 with a page). The largest in Bulgaria in 2019, of 42.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 882ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 27 Oct 2019 – 30 Oct 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 27 Oct
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 132
- in a single hotspot: 40 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 268MW
- 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 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 31 Oct.
This area had burned before
11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 96 ha in 2016.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Sofia boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, Wikimedia (Public Domain).
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).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
874 ha reached on 27 Oct3.5 %
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
- Other natural land84 %
- Broadleaved forest16 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Zapaden Balkan BG0002002
- LIC Zapadna Stara planina i Predbalkan BG0001040
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 Oct | 16.6 °C | 25 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 28 Oct | 15.0 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 29 Oct | 13.2 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Oct | 7.6 °C | 68 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 31 Oct after | 2.1 °C | 97 % | 30 km/h | 3.2 mm | Very low 0 |
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 30 October 2019 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 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 · 132Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,873 haPirot Municipality Град ПиротOctober 2019 · 4 days · 2 km away
- 276 haMontana Монтана23 August 2024 · 3 days · 23 km away
- 5,274 haVidlič Град ПиротAugust 2024 · 6 days · 25 km away
- 289 haGeorgi Bamyanovo Дълги делSeptember 2021 · 2 days · 25 km away
- 374 haBela Palanka Municipality Бела Паланка7 March 2025 · 3 days · 36 km away
- 496 haVarshets ВършецOctober 2018 · 3 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Chiprovtsi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 October 2019 to 30 October 2019 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 October 2019 to 29 October 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 882 hectares (8.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Chiprovtsi (874 ha, 3.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Chiprovtsi and came within 2.7 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 16.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 37 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.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 October 2019 to 29 October 2019. 132 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.
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.