Burned area
satellite only3,636ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 26 January 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
HR · Croatia · –
Grad Vrlika fire, April 2020 Grad Vrlika, Općina Ružić, Općina Muć
Out · last detection 13 Apr 2020, 01:50 UTC
The fire started on 8 April 2020 in Grad Vrlika, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,636 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Split-Dalmatia since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 3 in Croatia in 2020, of 32.
Use this data
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Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only6days
8 Apr 2020 to 13 Apr 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 13 Apr 2020, 01:50 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only8 Apr 2020
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 8 Apr 2020
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only180
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 68 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 8 Apr 2020 – 13 Apr 2020
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only347MW
Total radiative power on 8 April 2020; hotspots that day: 52.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 8 Apr 2020
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model13.5FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 7.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 8 Apr 2020, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model20.0°C · 21% RH
High of 20.0 °C and minimum humidity of 21% on 10 April 2020; gusts of 44 km/h on 13 April 2020.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 8 Apr 2020 – 13 Apr 2020
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 3,636 ha
- Dates
- 8 Apr 2020 – 13 Apr 2020
- Name
- Grad Vrlika
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/grad-vrlika-2020-04?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire grad-vrlika-2020-04.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-04-08 | 52 | 347 | 15.8 | -0.3 | 20 | 8.4 | 26.3 | 0 | 13.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-04-09 | 30 | 148 | 17.8 | 0.3 | 26 | 8.6 | 29.9 | 0 | 15 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-04-10 | 52 | 179 | 20 | 1.9 | 21 | 9.8 | 32.8 | 0 | 17.4 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-04-11 | 17 | 31 | 19.1 | 4.4 | 28 | 8.5 | 29.9 | 0 | 14.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-04-12 | 20 | 99 | 18.7 | 4.9 | 22 | 11.8 | 35.3 | 0 | 17.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-04-13 | 9 | 19 | 15.9 | 5.7 | 45 | 13.6 | 43.9 | 0 | 19.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2020-04-14 | 0 | 0 | 9.8 | -0.2 | 57 | 19.4 | 64.1 | 16.5 | 0 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 3,636ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 8 Apr 2020 – 13 Apr 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 8 Apr
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 180
- in a single hotspot: 68 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 137MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
8 Apr13 Apr
13 Apr 2020
How it evolved, day by day
8 Apr
10 Apr
12 Apr
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
20°high
44km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.5 mm on 14 Apr.
This area had burned before
25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 896 ha in 2017.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Zagreb boundary: geoBoundaries · OpenStreetMap, Wambacher · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Grad Vrlika where it started2,059 ha reached on 8 Apr8.5 %
-
1,275 ha reached on 8 Apr7.7 %
-
226 ha reached on 11 Apr1.0 %
-
76 ha reached on 10 Apr0.4 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland36 %
- Other natural land33 %
- Broadleaved forest30 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Apr | 15.8 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 9 Apr | 17.8 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 10 Apr | 20.0 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 11 Apr | 19.1 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 12 Apr | 18.7 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Apr | 15.9 °C | 45 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 14 Apr after | 9.8 °C | 57 % | 64 km/h | 16.5 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 13.5, a minimum humidity of 20% and 7 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 41.
FWI at the start
13.5
Minimum humidity
20 %
Days without rain
7
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Grad Vrlika fire, April 2020
3,636 ha
6 days
FWI 13.5
Min. humidity 20 %
Općina Lovinac fire, March 2022
725 ha
2 days
FWI 12.1
Min. humidity 20 %
94 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.6 mm on 30 Mar.
Kakanj fire, March 2022
176 ha
4 days
FWI 13.1
Min. humidity 19 %
133 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 18.1 mm on 31 Mar.
Posušje fire, March 2022
133 ha
2 days
FWI 13.5
Min. humidity 19 %
90 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 19.4 mm on 30 Mar.
Općina Lovinac fire, March 2017
1,301 ha
5 days
FWI 12.4
Min. humidity 21 %
75 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 9.0 mm on 3 Apr.
Bihać fire, March 2022
401 ha
4 days
FWI 13.1
Min. humidity 20 %
94 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 30 Mar.
What happened to them
- 3 days
- median duration
- 178 ha
- median area
- 15 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 7.1 mm
- rain at the end (median; 41 of 41 had it)
It was 20.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 3 days.
Only 1 of its 41 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.1 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
16.5 mmfirst rain
14 Aprthe day after it ended
44km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 13 Apr, and on 14 Apr 16.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 41 of 41, with a median of 7.1 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 1 Apr 2020
After · 20 Apr 2020
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 10 April 2020 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1044 µg/m³
WHO 15
6 Apr9 Apr12 Apr15 Apr
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 · 180Every 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
- 5,948 haDinara Općina CivljaneApril 2020 · 7 days · 17 km away
- 3,327 haOpćina HrvaceAugust 2017 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 3,400 haGrad Knin13 August 2026 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 4,742 haLivno2 August 2017 · 6 days · 24 km away
- 8,212 haBosansko Grahovo6 April 2020 · 8 days · 25 km away
- 8,657 haBosansko GrahovoAugust 2026 · 12 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Grad Vrlika fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 8 April 2020 and 13 April 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,636 hectares (36.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Grad Vrlika (2,059 ha, 8.5 %); Općina Ružić (1,275 ha, 7.7 %); Općina Muć (226 ha, 1.0 %); Općina Hrvace (76 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 20.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 41. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 178 ha; 15 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 41 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.1 mm.
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 With cross-checks and a citable version
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. 180 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.