Grad Gospić fire, 23 February 2019 Grad Gospić
The fire started on 23 February 2019 in Grad Gospić, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,058 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Lika-Senj since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 2 in Croatia in 2019, of 32.
The power measured by the satellite is low (6.4 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
- 1,058ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 23 Feb 2019 – 26 Feb 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 52
- in a single hotspot: 6 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 35MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 5 Mar.
This area had burned before
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 856 ha in 2017.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Zagreb boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Grad Gospić where it started1,058 ha reached on 23 Feb1.1 %
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 land51 %
- Agricultural areas29 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland11 %
- Artificial surfaces4.9 %
- Coniferous forest4.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Lička krška polja HR1000021
- LIC Ličko polje HR2001012
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Feb | -2.0 °C | 39 % | 75 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 1 |
| 24 Feb | 2.6 °C | 33 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 25 Feb | 4.9 °C | 44 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 26 Feb | 12.8 °C | 39 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 27 Feb after | 9.4 °C | 43 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 28 Feb after | 13.6 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 1 Mar after | 12.5 °C | 49 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very low 4 |
| 2 Mar after | 12.1 °C | 43 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 3 Mar after | 13.0 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 4 Mar after | 12.0 °C | 53 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 5 Mar after | 12.1 °C | 53 % | 44 km/h | 1.6 mm | Very low 1 |
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 21 February 2019 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 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 · 52Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,155 haGrad Gospić8 April 2020 · 6 days · 0 km away
- 1,137 haGrad GospićFebruary 2017 · 7 days · 0 km away
- 2,218 haOpćina UdbinaApril 2020 · 7 days · 10 km away
- 1,483 haOpćina Udbina25 February 2019 · 3 days · 15 km away
- 3,936 haOpćina Gračac22 March 2022 · 8 days · 29 km away
- 1,301 haOpćina Lovinac29 March 2017 · 5 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Grad Gospić fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 February 2019 to 26 February 2019 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 February 2019 to 25 February 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,058 hectares (10.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Grad Gospić (1,058 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 12.8 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 75 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, class Very low.
- 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.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 February 2019 to 25 February 2019. 52 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-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.