ISTRIA fire, September 2016 SACELE, ISTRIA
The fire started on 23 September 2016 in ISTRIA, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 361 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
This record is fire in the reed beds of the Danube Delta, not a forest fire. Thousands of hectares of reed burn in the delta every year, mostly between January and April, and many of these burns are deliberate. That is why it is left out of the fire rankings.
- Burnt area
- 361ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 23 Sept 2016 – 23 Sept 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Sept
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 2
- in a single hotspot: 300 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 400MW
- 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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 25 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
SACELE 1,987 inhabitants · 9.0 km from the town192 ha1.3 %
-
169 ha reached on 23 Sept1.0 %
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 land100 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Delta Dunării ROSCI0065
- ZEPA Delta Dunării și Complexul Razim - Sinoie ROSPA0031
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Sept | 18.1 °C | 44 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 24 Sept after | 20.9 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 25 Sept after | 18.5 °C | 66 % | 26 km/h | 1.0 mm | Low 5 |
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 · 2Every 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 ISTRIA fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 23 September 2016 and 23 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 361 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: SACELE (192 ha, 1.3 %); ISTRIA (169 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.6 km of ISTRIA. 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 18.1 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 46 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 Romania (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
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.