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Ilinden fire, September 2021 Општина Илинден · Ilinden

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2021, 00:12 UTC

The fire started on 7 September 2021 in Ilinden, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 140 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 24th largest in Skopje since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 28 in North Macedonia in 2021, of 36.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.6 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
140ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
7 Sept 2021 – 7 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Sept
2021
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

7

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
23km/h · peak gust
17%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. Ilinden Општина Илинден 17,435 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the town where it started
    141 ha reached on 5 Sept
    1.4 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest45 %
  • Agricultural areas28 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland27 %

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)
7 Sept 26.4 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Sept after 24.0 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
9 Sept after 22.4 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Sept after 27.4 °C 20 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Sept after 29.6 °C 10 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Sept after 28.4 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Sept after 30.2 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 45
14 Sept after 30.2 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Sept after 31.2 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Sept after 31.6 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Sept after 31.4 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Aug 2021
After · 14 Sept 2021

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 10 September 2021 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
5678910
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 · 3Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ilinden fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 September 2021 and 7 September 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 140 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ilinden (141 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.0 km of Ilinden. 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 26.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of North Macedonia (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: 193 · 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 193 · 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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.