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Grad Benkovac fire, August 2024 Grad Benkovac, Općina Pakoštane

Out · last measured on 1 Aug 2024

The fire started on 1 August 2024 in Grad Benkovac, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 108 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 51th largest in Zadar County since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 13 in Croatia in 2024, of 14.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Općina Pakoštane · 2017Grad Benkovac · 2017Grad Vodice · 2022Općina Kistanje · 2017

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
108ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
1 Aug 2024 – 1 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2024
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

35°high
31km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 108 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Grad Benkovac where it started
    107 ha
    0.2 %
  2. Općina Pakoštane
    1 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Other natural land98 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
1 Aug 35.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Aug after 34.4 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
3 Aug after 33.0 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
4 Aug after 35.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
5 Aug after 34.4 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug after 34.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Aug after 35.2 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug after 31.7 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 35.2 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Aug after 37.1 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Aug after 37.7 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2024
After · 8 Aug 2024

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 3 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
30311234
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Croatia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Grad Benkovac fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 August 2024 and 1 August 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 108 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Grad Benkovac (107 ha, 0.2 %); Općina Pakoštane (1 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 112 · 193.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.