How long did the CRISAN fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 2 September 2017 and 3 September 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 171 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered CRISAN (171 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.6 km of CRISAN. 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 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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.

RO · Romania · 2017-09-02 → 2017-09-03

CRISAN fire, 2 September 2017 CRISAN

Out · last detection 3 Sept 2017, 01:19 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2017 in CRISAN, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 171 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.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 171ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 2 Sept 2017 – 3 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 2 Sept; 2017
Heat detections: 7; in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Energy released: 82MW; sum of detected power

Play back 3 Sept 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept3 Sept

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

27°high

45km/h · peak gust

55%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

CRISAN 1,092 inhabitants · 15.6 km from the town where it started

171 ha reached on 2 Sept

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 land100 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

LIC Delta Dunării ROSCI0065
ZEPA Delta Dunării și Complexul Razim - Sinoie ROSPA0031

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)
2 Sept	27.2 °C	55 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
3 Sept	26.1 °C	55 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
4 Sept after	25.4 °C	42 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
5 Sept after	23.3 °C	40 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
6 Sept after	24.2 °C	36 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
7 Sept after	25.4 °C	46 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Sept after	25.8 °C	54 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
9 Sept after	25.0 °C	57 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
10 Sept after	26.3 °C	66 %	34 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 18
11 Sept after	26.7 °C	55 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
12 Sept after	27.9 °C	53 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
13 Sept after	27.9 °C	45 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Aug 2017

After · 10 Sept 2017

Before After

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 2 September 2017 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1019 µg/m³

31123456

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 · 7Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Romania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the CRISAN fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 2 September 2017 and 3 September 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 171 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered CRISAN (171 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.6 km of CRISAN. 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 27.2 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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.

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

IGSU · Inspectoratul General pentru Situații de Urgență ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned