Dolna Mitropoliya fire, July 2024 Долна Митрополия · Dolna Mitropoliya
The fire started on 14 July 2024 in Dolna Mitropoliya, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 613 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 6th largest in Pleven since 2016 (of 23 with a page). Number 14 in Bulgaria in 2024, of 62.
The power measured by the satellite is low (8.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 613ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 14 Jul 2024 – 17 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 14 Jul
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 2
- in a single hotspot: 9 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 17MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
17 Jul 2024 · 17 MW · 2
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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 22 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
613 ha reached on 17 Jul0.9 %
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
- Agricultural areas87 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland6.9 %
- Broadleaved forest6.2 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 38 %
- LIC Reka Iskar BG0000613
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jul | 37.8 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Jul | 37.5 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 16 Jul | 39.5 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 1.4 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Jul | 38.4 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 36 |
| 18 Jul after | 37.8 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very high 41 |
| 19 Jul after | 34.2 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Jul after | 36.3 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Jul after | 34.3 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 1.8 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 18 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 2Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 308 haGulyantsi ГулянциJuly 2025 · 2 days · 5 km away
- 531 haIslazAugust 2022 · 3 days · 23 km away
- 813 haIslazFebruary 2020 · 4 days · 24 km away
- 302 haGiuvărăștiAugust 2025 · 2 days · 32 km away
- 325 haDolni Dabnik Долни ДъбникAugust 2024 · 2 days · 35 km away
- 1,541 haCherven Bryag Червен бряг15 July 2024 · 2 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dolna Mitropoliya fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 July 2024 to 17 July 2024 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 July 2024 to 16 July 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 613 hectares (6.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dolna Mitropoliya (613 ha, 0.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Dolna Mitropoliya and came within 8.6 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 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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 · 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 14 July 2024 to 16 July 2024. 2 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.