How long did the Grad Split fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2024 and 29 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 637 hectares (6.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Grad Split (635 ha, 8.0 %); Općina Podstrana (1 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 57 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.

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.

HR · Croatia · 2024-08-27 → 2024-08-29

Grad Split fire, 27 August 2024 Grad Split, Općina Podstrana

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2024, 02:10 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2024 in Grad Split, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 637 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Split-Dalmatia since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 8 in Croatia in 2024, of 14.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 637ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 27 Aug 2024 – 29 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 27 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 7; in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start: 13; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 20MW; sum of detected power

Play back 29 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2829

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

30km/h · peak gust

57%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 5 Sept.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 637 ha in 2017.

637 ha Grad Omiš fire, July 2017 5,122 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Grad Split where it started

635 ha reached on 28 Aug

8.0 %
Općina Podstrana

1 ha

0.1 %

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

Other natural land68 %
Agricultural areas12 %
Sclerophyllous scrub8.8 %
Scrub and transitional woodland8.4 %
Artificial surfaces2.2 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 93 %

LIC Mosor HR2001352
ZEPA Mosor, Kozjak i Trogirska zagora HR1000027
LIC Područje oko Stražnice HR2001376

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)
27 Aug	29.6 °C	64 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 13
28 Aug	29.3 °C	66 %	24 km/h	0.7 mm	Low 10
29 Aug	29.8 °C	57 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
30 Aug after	29.9 °C	57 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 12
31 Aug after	29.9 °C	57 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
1 Sept after	30.0 °C	48 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
2 Sept after	29.0 °C	59 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
3 Sept after	28.3 °C	65 %	17 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 12
4 Sept after	27.5 °C	63 %	20 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 13
5 Sept after	27.2 °C	69 %	35 km/h	3.0 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Aug 2024

After · 5 Sept 2024

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 30 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1030 µg/m³

Optical depth0.49

WHO 15

252627282930311

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 7Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Croatia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Grad Split fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2024 and 29 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 637 hectares (6.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Grad Split (635 ha, 8.0 %); Općina Podstrana (1 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 57 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
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

Hrvatska vatrogasna zajednica ↗
Civilna zaštita ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned