Grad Gospić fire, March 2025 Grad Gospić
The fire started on 9 March 2025 in Grad Gospić, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 163 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 54th largest in Lika-Senj since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 8 in Croatia in 2025, of 11.
Compare with…
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.
- Burnt area
- 163ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 9 Mar 2025 – 10 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Mar
- 2025
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 100%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.5 mm on 11 Mar.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 113 ha in 2019, 62 ha in 2021, 85 ha in 2022, 44 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 152 ha that had burned before.
- 85 ha Grad Gospić fire, March 2022 290 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 62 ha Grad Gospić fire, February 2021 179 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 52 ha Grad Gospić fire, March 2019 122 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Grad Gospić where it started163 ha0.2 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland56 %
- Agricultural areas43 %
- Artificial surfaces0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Mar | 16.4 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 10 Mar | 13.4 °C | 59 % | 65 km/h | 9.1 mm | Very low 0 |
| 11 Mar after | 14.0 °C | 64 % | 44 km/h | 18.5 mm | Very low 0 |
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 8 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 20 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)
Other fires nearby
- 1,155 haGrad Gospić8 April 2020 · 6 days · 8 km away
- 1,137 haGrad GospićFebruary 2017 · 7 days · 8 km away
- 1,058 haGrad Gospić23 February 2019 · 4 days · 8 km away
- 2,218 haOpćina UdbinaApril 2020 · 7 days · 12 km away
- 1,483 haOpćina Udbina25 February 2019 · 3 days · 18 km away
- 3,936 haOpćina Gračac22 March 2022 · 8 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Grad Gospić fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 9 March 2025 and 10 March 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 163 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Grad Gospić (163 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 16.4 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, 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. 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.
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.