How long did the Dolneni fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 21 August 2025 and 24 August 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 635 hectares (6.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Dolneni (637 ha, 1.5 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.6 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 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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 · 2025-08-21 → 2025-08-24

Dolneni fire, August 2025 Општина Долнени · Dolneni

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2025, 11:05 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2025 in Dolneni, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 635 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 19th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 12 in North Macedonia in 2025, of 37.

Burnt area: 635ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 21 Aug 2025 – 24 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 21 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 27; in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Energy released: 356MW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Aug 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug24 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

21222324

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

50km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 31 Aug.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 145 ha in 2017, 144 ha in 2019, 235 ha in 2023, 27 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 417 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 9.6 km from the town where it started

637 ha reached on 21 Aug

1.5 %

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 woodland49 %
Broadleaved forest28 %
Agricultural areas23 %

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)
21 Aug	32.1 °C	28 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
22 Aug	27.1 °C	42 %	50 km/h	0.1 mm	High 23
23 Aug	23.3 °C	47 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 18
24 Aug	25.5 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
25 Aug after	25.1 °C	38 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
26 Aug after	25.2 °C	33 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
27 Aug after	28.3 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
28 Aug after	29.9 °C	23 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
29 Aug after	31.3 °C	27 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
30 Aug after	31.0 °C	26 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 Aug after	25.3 °C	37 %	37 km/h	3.5 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Aug 2025

After · 31 Aug 2025

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 23 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1026 µg/m³

Optical depth0.37

WHO 15

192021222324252627

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 · 27Every 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 21 August 2025 and 24 August 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 635 hectares (6.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Dolneni (637 ha, 1.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.6 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 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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