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Dolneni fire, August 2024 Општина Долнени · Makedonski Brod, Dolneni

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2024, 10:20 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2024 in Dolneni, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,158 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 13 in North Macedonia in 2024, of 69.

Burnt area
1,158ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
14 Aug 2024 – 18 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Aug
2024
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 60 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
164MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

14161718

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
37km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 965 ha in 2019, 50 ha in 2021, 460 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,065 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Makedonski Brod Општина Македонски Брод 5,889 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the town
    951 ha reached on 16 Aug
    1.1 %
  2. Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 13.0 km from the town where it started
    206 ha reached on 14 Aug
    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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland47 %
  • Other natural land47 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.2 %
  • Agricultural areas1.6 %

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 Aug 31.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug 32.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Aug 32.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug 31.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 5.1 mm Low 10
18 Aug 28.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Aug after 26.9 °C 40 % 39 km/h 2.5 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2024
After · 25 Aug 2024

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 17 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1017 µg/m³
Optical depth1.02
12131415161718192021
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 · 12Every 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 14 August 2024 and 18 August 2024: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,158 hectares (11.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Makedonski Brod (951 ha, 1.1 %); Dolneni (206 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.8 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 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very 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

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.