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Gacko fire, September 2026 Gacko

Out · last detection 11 Sept 2026, 00:09 UTC

The fire started on 10 September 2026 in Gacko, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 310 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 157th largest in Republika Srpska since 2016 (of 391 with a page). Number 35 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2026, of 94.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.5 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
310ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
10 Sept 2026 – 10 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Sept
2026
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
9MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1011

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
36km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 11 Sept.

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 191 ha in 2016, 157 ha in 2020, 285 ha in 2024, 130 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 285 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Gacko where it started
    310 ha
    0.4 %

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 land96 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland4.2 %

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)
10 Sept 26.6 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
11 Sept after 21.1 °C 53 % 56 km/h 1.8 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Sept 2026
After · 17 Sept 2026

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 10 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1094 µg/m³
Optical depth1.10
891011121314
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 · 6Every 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 Bosnia & Herzegovina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gacko fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 September 2026 and 10 September 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 310 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gacko (310 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.6 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class High.
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
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 123 · 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 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.