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Dolneni fire, 23 September 2023 Општина Долнени · Dolneni

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2023, 10:32 UTC

The fire started on 23 September 2023 in Dolneni, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 389 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 13 in North Macedonia in 2023, of 19.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Makedonski Brod · 2025Chashka · 2024Makedonski Brod · 2024Mariovo · 2024

Burnt area
389ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
23 Sept 2023 – 27 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Sept
2023
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 176 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
73MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Sept27 Sept
27 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

23 Sept 2023 · 199 MW · 2 26 Sept 2023 · 16 MW · 2 27 Sept 2023 · 4 MW · 2
23 Sept 26 Sept 27 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
46km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 6 Oct.

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 · 4.0 km from the centre where it started
    389 ha reached on 23 Sept
    0.9 %

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 areas64 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland22 %
  • Broadleaved forest14 %

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 Sept 33.2 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Sept 28.6 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
25 Sept 22.7 °C 63 % 45 km/h 22.4 mm Very low 0
26 Sept 25.3 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 5
27 Sept 25.4 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
28 Sept after 25.6 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
29 Sept after 24.6 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
30 Sept after 25.6 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
1 Oct after 23.5 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
2 Oct after 23.1 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Oct after 23.3 °C 35 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Oct after 26.1 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
5 Oct after 25.3 °C 39 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Oct after 22.4 °C 41 % 34 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Sept 2023
After · 4 Oct 2023

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 23 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1055 µg/m³
Optical depth0.69
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 · 6Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 September 2023 to 27 September 2023 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 September 2023 to 26 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 389 hectares (3.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dolneni (389 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Dolneni and came within 4.0 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 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
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 · 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 September 2023 to 26 September 2023. 6 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.