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Harmanli fire, September 2016 Харманли · Harmanli

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2016, 11:28 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2016 in Harmanli, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 633 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Haskovo since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 7 in Bulgaria in 2016, of 24.

Burnt area
633ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
4 Sept 2016 – 4 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2016
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
104MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept4 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

4

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
36km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Harmanli Харманли 22,716 inhabitants · 7.0 km from the town where it started
    634 ha reached on 4 Sept
    0.9 %

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

  • Agricultural areas52 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland25 %
  • Other natural land20 %
  • Other land cover2.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 7 %

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)
4 Sept 31.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept after 31.2 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Sept after 31.4 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Sept after 29.4 °C 39 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
8 Sept after 31.5 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept after 30.7 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Sept after 30.7 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Sept after 29.7 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Sept after 29.5 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Sept after 28.9 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Sept after 29.3 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2016
After · 11 Sept 2016

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 6 September 2016 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
234567
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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Harmanli fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 4 September 2016 and 4 September 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 633 hectares (6.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Harmanli (634 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 7.0 km of Harmanli. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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

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
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.

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 (Public Domain). 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.