Gostivar fire, August 2026 Општина Гостивар · Gostivar, Makedonski Brod
The fire started on 23 August 2026 in Gostivar, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 222 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 19th largest in Polog since 2016 (of 49 with a page). Number 24 in North Macedonia in 2026, of 40.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 222ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 8days
- 23 Aug 2026 – 30 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 18MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 31 Aug.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2022, 73 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 77 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
230 ha reached on 24 Aug0.4 %
-
0 ha0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Broadleaved forest54 %
- Other natural land40 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland6.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Aug | 28.4 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 23 |
| 24 Aug | 29.2 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 25 Aug | 30.0 °C | 27 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Aug | 29.0 °C | 38 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 27 Aug | 30.7 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Aug | 31.1 °C | 33 % | 52 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 22 |
| 29 Aug | 30.5 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 2.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Aug | 29.3 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 31 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 49 % | 20 km/h | 2.5 mm | Very low 5 |
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 24 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily 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 · 17Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,197 haMakedonski Brod Општина Македонски БродJuly 2017 · 19 days · 9 km away
- 2,807 haMakedonski Brod Општина Македонски Брод28 July 2024 · 12 days · 18 km away
- 2,056 haMakedonski Brod Општина Македонски Брод1 September 2026 · 25 days · 25 km away
- 3,768 haMakedonski Brod Општина Македонски Брод2 July 2025 · 9 days · 32 km away
- 1,813 haSaraj Општина СарајJuly 2017 · 10 days · 35 km away
- 1,749 haMakedonski Brod Општина Македонски БродSeptember 2019 · 5 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gostivar fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (23 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 30 August 2026 (8 days from 23 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 222 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gostivar (230 ha, 0.4 %); Makedonski Brod (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Gostivar and came within 9.8 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Area: 230 → 222 ha.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 17 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.