Illmitz fire, April 2020 Illmitz
The fire started on 3 April 2020 in Illmitz, Austria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 168 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
The only fire in Austria with a page in 2020.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 168ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 3 Apr 2020 – 4 Apr 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Apr
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 4
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 26MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
3 Apr 2020 · 26 MW · 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
It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 13 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Illmitz where it started168 ha reached on 3 Apr1.8 %
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 land93 %
- Agricultural areas4.6 %
- Other land cover2.3 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA + LIC Neusiedler See - Nordöstliches Leithagebirge AT1110137
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Apr | 16.3 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 4 Apr | 15.9 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 5 Apr after | 18.4 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 6 Apr after | 19.8 °C | 20 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 7 Apr after | 20.4 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 8 Apr after | 21.7 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 9 Apr after | 24.6 °C | 11 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Apr after | 21.4 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 11 Apr after | 20.8 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 12 Apr after | 23.8 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Apr after | 23.6 °C | 24 % | 42 km/h | 1.5 mm | Moderate 16 |
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.
Detections table · 4Every 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 Illmitz fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 April 2020 and 4 April 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 168 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Illmitz (168 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 16.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 42 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 Austria (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 · 122
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4 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 ADM3 (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.