How long did the Dolneni fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2024 and 21 July 2024: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 737 hectares (7.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Dolneni (460 ha, 1.1 %); Prilep (249 ha, 0.2 %); Chashka (29 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.2 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 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.

MK · North Macedonia · 2024-07-18 → 2024-07-21

Dolneni fire, 18 July 2024 Општина Долнени · Dolneni, Prilep, Chashka

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2024, 12:25 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2024 in Dolneni, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 737 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 17th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 18 in North Macedonia in 2024, of 69.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.0 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: 737ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 18 Jul 2024 – 21 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 18 Jul; 2024
Heat detections: 42; in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Energy released: 240MW; sum of detected power

Play back 21 Jul 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18192021

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

41km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2020, 93 ha in 2021, 8 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 95 ha that had burned before.

93 ha Dolneni fire, March 2021 204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 11.2 km from the town where it started

460 ha reached on 18 Jul

1.1 %
Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 16.5 km from the town

249 ha reached on 19 Jul

0.2 %
Chashka Општина Чашка 7,942 inhabitants · 18.4 km from the town

29 ha reached on 24 Jul

0.0 %

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 forest35 %
Scrub and transitional woodland34 %
Other natural land24 %
Agricultural areas7.1 %

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)
18 Jul	35.1 °C	27 %	41 km/h	0.9 mm	High 29
19 Jul	32.8 °C	36 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
20 Jul	33.3 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Jul	33.4 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Jul after	32.5 °C	32 %	28 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Jul 2024

After · 28 Jul 2024

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 21 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1022 µg/m³

Optical depth1.19

WHO 15

161718192021222324

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 · 42Every 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 18 July 2024 and 21 July 2024: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 737 hectares (7.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Dolneni (460 ha, 1.1 %); Prilep (249 ha, 0.2 %); Chashka (29 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.2 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 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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

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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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