Highland fire, May 2019 Highland
The fire started on 13 May 2019 in Highland, United Kingdom, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,430 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 3th largest in Scotland since 2016 (of 49 with a page). The largest in United Kingdom in 2019, of 14.
- Burnt area
- 5,430ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 13 May 2019 – 17 May 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 13 May
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 308
- in a single hotspot: 114 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.1GW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 18 May.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Highland where it started5,550 ha reached on 14 May0.2 %
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 land98 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland1.2 %
- Coniferous forest1.1 %
Protected area affected (EFFIS layer): 78 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Strathy wildfire · Melvich wildfire · Flow Country wildfire
- Official area reported: 5,300 ha (the satellite measured 5,430 ha)
Sources
- Peatland Wildfire in Sutherland, Scotland (UK) — Copernicus (Image of the Day) · official source
- Scotland wildfires released six days worth of carbon — AirQualityNews, 20 November 2019
- Fire crews 'really stepped up for us' — Northern Times, 24 May 2019
- 2019 United Kingdom wildfires — Wikipedia (solo pista)
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 May | 18.1 °C | 46 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 14 May | 17.5 °C | 50 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 15 May | 19.9 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 16 May | 15.6 °C | 55 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 May | 15.1 °C | 51 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 18 May after | 11.7 °C | 71 % | 32 km/h | 3.1 mm | Very low 0 |
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 16 May 2019 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 308Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Highland fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 May 2019 and 17 May 2019: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,430 hectares (54.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Highland (5,550 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 19.9 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of United Kingdom (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: 999 · 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
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 ADM3 (Open Government Licence v3.0). 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.