Gacko fire, 29 January 2024 Gacko, Kalinovik
The fire started on 29 January 2024 in Gacko, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,198 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 14th largest in Republika Srpska since 2016 (of 391 with a page). Number 3 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2024, of 87.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.8 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
- 2,198ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 29 Jan 2024 – 3 Feb 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 20
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Danger at start
- 0
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 80MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 7 Feb.
This area had burned before
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 667 ha in 2016, 470 ha in 2019, 1,195 ha in 2020, 247 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,678 ha that had burned before.
- 1,147 ha Kalinovik fire, March 2020 3,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 403 ha Gacko fire, December 2016 414 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 324 ha Gacko fire, March 2019 430 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 264 ha Kalinovik fire, December 2016 342 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 122 ha Gacko fire, March 2022 175 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 113 ha Gacko fire, March 2019 120 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Gacko where it started1,692 ha reached on 29 Jan2.3 %
-
508 ha reached on 1 Feb0.8 %
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
- Other natural land88 %
- Agricultural areas7.5 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland2.2 %
- Broadleaved forest2.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jan | 2.9 °C | 53 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 30 Jan | 4.5 °C | 38 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 31 Jan | 8.3 °C | 27 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 1 Feb | 6.6 °C | 36 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Feb | 4.6 °C | 45 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 3 Feb | 10.4 °C | 49 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 4 Feb after | 10.9 °C | 52 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Feb after | 8.5 °C | 68 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 6 Feb after | 7.1 °C | 74 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 1 |
| 7 Feb after | 7.4 °C | 75 % | 37 km/h | 1.1 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 1 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 20Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,001 haKalinovik18 March 2020 · 6 days · 5 km away
- 3,843 haKalinovikJanuary 2024 · 5 days · 8 km away
- 4,094 haNevesinje16 August 2026 · 1 day · 12 km away
- 4,021 haBilećaAugust 2026 · 12 days · 27 km away
- 3,663 haBileća11 August 2025 · 6 days · 35 km away
- 4,538 haIstočni MostarApril 2020 · 6 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gacko fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 29 January 2024 and 3 February 2024: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,198 hectares (22.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gacko (1,692 ha, 2.3 %); Kalinovik (508 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 10.4 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, class Very low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bosnia & Herzegovina (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: 123 · 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
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 ADM3 (Public Domain). 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.