How long did the Dinara fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 9 April 2020 and 14 April 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,948 hectares (59.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Općina Civljane (3,733 ha, 44 %); Grad Vrlika (2,192 ha, 9.0 %); Općina Kijevo (10 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 14.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 101 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Croatia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

HR · Croatia · 2020-04-09 → 2020-04-14

Dinara fire, April 2020 Općina Civljane, Grad Vrlika, Općina Kijevo

Out · last detection 13 Apr 2020, 00:10 UTC

The fire started on 9 April 2020 in Općina Civljane, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,948 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Šibenik-Knin since 2016 (of 56 with a page). The largest in Croatia in 2020, of 32.

Burnt area: 5,948ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 9 Apr 2020 – 14 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 9 Apr; 2020
Heat detections: 210; in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start: 6; Low · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Apr 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Apr14 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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

The weather it burned in

14°high

101km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 21 Apr.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,343 ha in 2016.

1,343 ha Grad Vrlika fire, April 2016 2,836 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Općina Civljane where it started

3,733 ha reached on 9 Apr

44 %
Grad Vrlika

2,192 ha reached on 11 Apr

9.0 %
Općina Kijevo

10 ha

0.1 %

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 land77 %
Scrub and transitional woodland19 %
Broadleaved forest3.1 %
Sclerophyllous scrub0.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

ZEPA + LIC Dinara HR1000028 · HR5000028

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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as: Požar na Dinari · Požar Dinara-Ježevići-Vrlika · Dinara wildfire; Declared extinguished: 14 April 2020

Sources

Ugasen pozar na Dinari — Ferata.hr, 14 April 2020
U sjeni pandemije: Požar uništava Dinaru, iz Kijeva, Knina, Vrlike upućen apel za spas Dinare — Mok.hr (Šibenik News), 13 April 2020

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)
9 Apr	14.0 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
10 Apr	14.2 °C	30 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
11 Apr	13.9 °C	32 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
12 Apr	13.9 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
13 Apr	11.5 °C	39 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
14 Apr	5.0 °C	64 %	101 km/h	17.8 mm	Very low 0
15 Apr after	5.8 °C	36 %	105 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 0
16 Apr after	12.2 °C	31 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 0
17 Apr after	12.2 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 2
18 Apr after	14.3 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
19 Apr after	15.1 °C	49 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
20 Apr after	9.5 °C	56 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
21 Apr after	6.4 °C	54 %	67 km/h	4.6 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Apr 2020

After · 21 Apr 2020

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 10 April 2020 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak42 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1050 µg/m³

WHO 15

7891011121314151617

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 · 210Every 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 Croatia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dinara fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 9 April 2020 and 14 April 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,948 hectares (59.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Općina Civljane (3,733 ha, 44 %); Grad Vrlika (2,192 ha, 9.0 %); Općina Kijevo (10 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 14.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 101 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Croatia (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 · 193

Hrvatska vatrogasna zajednica ↗
Civilna zaštita ↗

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

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 112 · 193.

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-ShareAlike 2.0). 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