How long did the Dolneni fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 23 November 2020 and 26 November 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 247 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dolneni (188 ha, 0.5 %); Makedonski Brod (59 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.1 km of Makedonski Brod. 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 6.9 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.

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 · 2020-11-23 → 2020-11-26

Dolneni fire, November 2020 Општина Долнени · Dolneni, Makedonski Brod

Out · last detection 27 Nov 2020, 11:59 UTC

The fire started on 23 November 2020 in Dolneni, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 247 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 40th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). The largest in North Macedonia in 2020, of 6.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.9 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: 247ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 23 Nov 2020 – 26 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 23 Nov; 2020
Heat detections: 21; in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start: 4; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 63MW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Nov 2020

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Nov26 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

252627

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

The weather it burned in

7°high

23km/h · peak gust

36%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 29 Nov.

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 155 ha in 2017.

155 ha Dolneni fire, October 2017 192 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 13.1 km from the town where it started

188 ha reached on 25 Nov

0.5 %
Makedonski Brod Општина Македонски Брод 5,889 inhabitants · 12.1 km from the town

59 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 land52 %
Scrub and transitional woodland29 %
Broadleaved forest19 %

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)
23 Nov	6.9 °C	51 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
24 Nov	5.4 °C	52 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
25 Nov	4.1 °C	48 %	15 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
26 Nov	5.6 °C	36 %	13 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
27 Nov after	7.7 °C	37 %	14 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
28 Nov after	7.1 °C	40 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
29 Nov after	3.8 °C	55 %	17 km/h	1.5 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Nov 2020

After · 3 Dec 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 26 November 2020 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1068 µg/m³

WHO 15

212223242526272829

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 · 21Every 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 Dolneni fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 23 November 2020 and 26 November 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 247 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dolneni (188 ha, 0.5 %); Makedonski Brod (59 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.1 km of Makedonski Brod. 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 6.9 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.
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