Grad Split fire, July 2023 Grad Split, Grad Trogir, Općina Okrug
The fire started on 27 July 2023 in Grad Split, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 551 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 21th largest in Split-Dalmatia since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 3 in Croatia in 2023, of 6.
- Burnt area
- 551ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 27 Jul 2023 – 28 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 27 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 208MW
- sum of detected power
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 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 47.1 mm on 5 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Grad Split where it started346 ha reached on 27 Jul4.3 %
-
162 ha reached on 28 Jul4.2 %
-
43 ha reached on 27 Jul4.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Scrub and transitional woodland36 %
- Other natural land22 %
- Mixed forest20 %
- Agricultural areas9.8 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub9.6 %
- Broadleaved forest2.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Jul | 25.0 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jul | 25.5 °C | 47 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 29 Jul after | 26.6 °C | 60 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 30 Jul after | 27.0 °C | 64 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 31 Jul after | 27.9 °C | 52 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 1 Aug after | 26.9 °C | 62 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 2 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 60 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 3 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 73 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 4 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 69 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 5 Aug after | 25.2 °C | 69 % | 45 km/h | 47.1 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 29 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 81 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 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 · 17Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,505 haOpćina MarinaJuly 2024 · 3 days · 14 km away
- 5,122 haGrad OmišJuly 2017 · 3 days · 21 km away
- 3,992 haOpćina NerežišćaSeptember 2026 · 3 days · 25 km away
- 3,232 haGrad VrlikaAugust 2017 · 6 days · 34 km away
- 2,304 haOpćina MućMarch 2022 · 6 days · 34 km away
- 3,636 haGrad VrlikaApril 2020 · 6 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Grad Split fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 27 July 2023 and 28 July 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 551 hectares (5.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Grad Split (346 ha, 4.3 %); Grad Trogir (162 ha, 4.2 %); Općina Okrug (43 ha, 4.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 25.5 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.