Grad Gospić fire, 13 March 2022 Grad Gospić
The fire started on 13 March 2022 in Grad Gospić, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 415 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 18th largest in Lika-Senj since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 17 in Croatia in 2022, of 59.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.7 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
- 415ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 13 Mar 2022 – 13 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Mar
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 70MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
13 Mar 2022 · 70 MW · 9
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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 376 ha in 2017, 377 ha in 2019, 236 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 406 ha that had burned before.
- 377 ha Grad Gospić fire, February 2019 1,058 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 376 ha Grad Gospić fire, February 2017 1,137 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 236 ha Grad Gospić fire, April 2020 1,155 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Grad Gospić where it started415 ha reached on 13 Mar0.4 %
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 land85 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland6.0 %
- Coniferous forest4.8 %
- Artificial surfaces4.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar | 9.4 °C | 37 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 14 Mar after | 11.8 °C | 46 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 15 Mar after | 12.2 °C | 52 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 3 |
| 16 Mar after | 12.7 °C | 60 % | 35 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very low 2 |
| 17 Mar after | 11.2 °C | 51 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 18 Mar after | 10.8 °C | 38 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 19 Mar after | 11.2 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Mar after | 10.0 °C | 21 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 21 Mar after | 10.4 °C | 21 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 22 Mar after | 14.0 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 23 Mar after | 17.7 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
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 16 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 17 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 · 9Every 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 · 2 km away
- 1,137 haGrad GospićFebruary 2017 · 7 days · 2 km away
- 2,218 haOpćina UdbinaApril 2020 · 7 days · 9 km away
- 1,483 haOpćina Udbina25 February 2019 · 3 days · 14 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?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 March 2022 and 13 March 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 415 hectares (4.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Grad Gospić (415 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 9.4 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 33 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 9 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.