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Chirpan fire, August 2016 Чирпан · Chirpan

Out · last detection 2 Aug 2016, 00:24 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2016 in Chirpan, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 200 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Stara Zagora since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 17 in Bulgaria in 2016, of 24.

Burnt area
200ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
1 Aug 2016 – 2 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2016
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
132MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug2 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
27km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 12 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. Chirpan Чирпан 17,298 inhabitants · 9.1 km from the town where it started
    201 ha reached on 1 Aug
    0.4 %

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

  • Other natural land68 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland18 %
  • Agricultural areas14 %

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)
1 Aug 34.1 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Aug 31.8 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm High 25
3 Aug after 30.1 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Aug after 32.2 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Aug after 32.5 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug after 33.4 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Aug after 32.6 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug after 31.3 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug after 31.6 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug after 33.4 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Aug after 33.7 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug after 24.2 °C 51 % 32 km/h 5.8 mm Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2016
After · 9 Aug 2016

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 31 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1029 µg/m³
303112345
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 · 5Every 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 Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chirpan fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 August 2016 and 2 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 200 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chirpan (201 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.1 km of Chirpan. 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 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
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

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 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 (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.