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Grad Omiš fire, July 2017 Grad Split, Grad Omiš, Grad Solin

Out · last detection 19 Jul 2017, 00:42 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2017 in Grad Omiš, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,122 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Split-Dalmatia since 2016 (of 48 with a page). The largest in Croatia in 2017, of 78.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Grad Split · 2016Općina Nerežišća · 2026Grad Vrlika · 2017Općina Marina · 2024

Burnt area
5,122ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
16 Jul 2017 – 19 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
6
municipalities
Started on
16 Jul
2017
Heat detections
223
in a single hotspot: 334 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul19 Jul
19 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

16 Jul 2017 · 41 MW · 4 17 Jul 2017 · 3,862 MW · 142 18 Jul 2017 · 1,016 MW · 74 19 Jul 2017 · 3 MW · 3
16 Jul 17 Jul 18 Jul 19 Jul

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

26°high
49km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 24 Jul.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Grad Split
    3,241 ha reached on 16 Jul
    41 %
  2. Grad Omiš where it started
    1,121 ha reached on 16 Jul
    4.3 %
  3. Grad Solin
    351 ha reached on 18 Jul
    10 %
  4. Općina Podstrana
    324 ha reached on 17 Jul
    28 %
  5. Općina Dugi Rat
    84 ha reached on 17 Jul
    7.3 %
  6. Općina Klis
    2 ha reached on 18 Jul
    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 land58 %
  • Agricultural areas22 %
  • Artificial surfaces10 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland5.8 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub2.4 %
  • Mixed forest1.1 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area102 ha
Residents≈ 11,000

Inside the perimeter there were about 102 hectares of built-up land and about 11,000 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
16 Jul 25.6 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Jul 26.4 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Jul 26.0 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Jul 26.4 °C 58 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Jul after 26.4 °C 61 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
21 Jul after 27.6 °C 68 % 19 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
22 Jul after 27.8 °C 59 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Jul after 28.1 °C 59 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
24 Jul after 28.2 °C 60 % 38 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2017
After · 26 Jul 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 223Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Croatia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Grad Omiš fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 July 2017 to 19 July 2017 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 July 2017 to 19 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,122 hectares (51.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Grad Split (3,241 ha, 41 %); Grad Omiš (1,121 ha, 4.3 %); Grad Solin (351 ha, 10 %); Općina Podstrana (324 ha, 28 %); Općina Dugi Rat (84 ha, 7.3 %); Općina Klis (2 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 July 2017 to 19 July 2017. 223 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.