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Dolneni fire, March 2025 Општина Долнени · Dolneni

Out · last measured on 10 Mar 2025

The fire started on 9 March 2025 in Dolneni, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 198 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 50th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 22 in North Macedonia in 2025, of 37.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
198ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
9 Mar 2025 – 10 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Mar
2025
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

20°high
31km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 13 Mar.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 114 ha in 2019, 10 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 115 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 10.1 km from the town where it started
    199 ha reached on 9 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 forest56 %
  • Agricultural areas29 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland15 %

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)
9 Mar 20.3 °C 15 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
10 Mar 20.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
11 Mar after 19.2 °C 41 % 60 km/h 0.7 mm Low 6
12 Mar after 19.3 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm Low 7
13 Mar after 20.0 °C 35 % 59 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2025
After · 17 Mar 2025

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 12 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
78910111213
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dolneni fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 March 2025 and 10 March 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 198 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dolneni (199 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.1 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 20.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, 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.