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Dolneni fire, March 2021 Општина Долнени · Dolneni

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2021, 01:19 UTC

The fire started on 5 March 2021 in Dolneni, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 204 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 49th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 22 in North Macedonia in 2021, of 36.

Burnt area
204ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
5 Mar 2021 – 6 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Mar
2021
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
276MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Mar6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

56

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
41km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.3 mm on 10 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 12.0 km from the town where it started
    204 ha reached on 5 Mar
    0.5 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest62 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland30 %
  • Other natural land8.4 %

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)
5 Mar 14.5 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
6 Mar 5.7 °C 54 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 4
7 Mar after 8.9 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
8 Mar after 9.8 °C 48 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
9 Mar after 6.4 °C 58 % 19 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 3
10 Mar after 6.0 °C 75 % 35 km/h 12.3 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Feb 2021
After · 13 Mar 2021

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 7 March 2021 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1038 µg/m³
3456789
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 · 9Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dolneni fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 March 2021 and 6 March 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 204 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dolneni (204 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.0 km of Dolneni. 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 14.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class 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

Satellite cross-check

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?

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.