How long did the Debartsa fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 26 July 2024 and 28 July 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,111 hectares (11.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Debartsa (652 ha, 1.5 %); Demir Hisar (328 ha, 0.7 %); Ohrid (133 ha, 0.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.0 km of Debartsa. 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 25.9 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.

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.

MK · North Macedonia · 2024-07-26 → 2024-07-28

Debartsa fire, July 2024 Општина Дебарца · Debartsa, Demir Hisar, Ohrid

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2024, 23:53 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2024 in Debartsa, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,111 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Southwest since 2016 (of 61 with a page). Number 14 in North Macedonia in 2024, of 69.

Burnt area: 1,111ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 26 Jul 2024 – 28 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 26 Jul; 2024
Heat detections: 106; in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start: 16; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 1MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul28 Jul

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

26°high

32km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.8 mm on 4 Aug.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 61 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

Debartsa Општина Дебарца 3,719 inhabitants · 14.0 km from the town where it started

652 ha reached on 29 Jul

1.5 %
Demir Hisar Општина Демир Хисар/Мургашево 7,260 inhabitants · 16.3 km from the town

328 ha reached on 1 Aug

0.7 %
Ohrid Општина Охрид 51,428 inhabitants · 19.7 km from the town

133 ha reached on 1 Aug

0.3 %

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 land79 %
Broadleaved forest12 %
Scrub and transitional woodland8.9 %

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)
26 Jul	20.4 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
27 Jul	23.1 °C	42 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
28 Jul	25.9 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
29 Jul after	25.3 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
30 Jul after	22.5 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
31 Jul after	23.0 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
1 Aug after	25.7 °C	23 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
2 Aug after	26.3 °C	24 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
3 Aug after	25.7 °C	29 %	58 km/h	0.2 mm	High 34
4 Aug after	21.2 °C	48 %	32 km/h	7.8 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Jul 2024

After · 4 Aug 2024

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 24 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1010 µg/m³

Optical depth0.77

2425262728293031

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 · 106Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Debartsa fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 26 July 2024 and 28 July 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,111 hectares (11.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Debartsa (652 ha, 1.5 %); Demir Hisar (328 ha, 0.7 %); Ohrid (133 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.0 km of Debartsa. 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 25.9 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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

Центар за управување со кризи ↗

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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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 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.

Where it burned