Grad Benkovac fire, July 2017 Grad Benkovac, Općina Kistanje, Grad Skradin
The fire started on 16 July 2017 in Grad Benkovac, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,306 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Zadar County since 2016 (of 56 with a page). Number 17 in Croatia in 2017, of 78.
- Burnt area
- 1,306ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 16 Jul 2017 – 18 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 61
- in a single hotspot: 142 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.0GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 21 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Grad Benkovac where it started917 ha reached on 15 Jul1.4 %
-
296 ha reached on 17 Jul1.2 %
-
93 ha reached on 16 Jul0.5 %
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
- Other natural land67 %
- Agricultural areas17 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland10 %
- Broadleaved forest6.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jul | 29.6 °C | 19 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 16 Jul | 26.8 °C | 20 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Jul | 28.9 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Jul | 30.5 °C | 22 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Jul after | 30.8 °C | 23 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Jul after | 32.1 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Jul after | 34.8 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 3.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
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 18 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 18 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 · 61Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,876 haGrad Benkovac20 August 2017 · 5 days · 6 km away
- 2,041 haOpćina PakoštaneJuly 2017 · 2 days · 16 km away
- 2,909 haGrad VodiceJuly 2022 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 2,092 haOpćina Promina17 August 2017 · 6 days · 29 km away
- 4,959 haOpćina Gračac5 April 2020 · 6 days · 31 km away
- 4,086 haOpćina Gračac5 August 2017 · 6 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Grad Benkovac fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2017 and 18 July 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,306 hectares (13.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Grad Benkovac (917 ha, 1.4 %); Općina Kistanje (296 ha, 1.2 %); Grad Skradin (93 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Croatia (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: 112 · 193
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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0). 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.