Kakanj fire, April 2020 Kakanj
The fire started on 4 April 2020 in Kakanj, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 106 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 497th largest in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 520 with a page). Number 177 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2020, of 183.
The power measured by the satellite is low (6.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 106ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 4 Apr 2020 – 8 Apr 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Apr
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 10MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.2 mm on 14 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Kakanj where it started106 ha reached on 5 Apr0.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Broadleaved forest86 %
- Mixed forest14 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Apr | 13.3 °C | 31 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 6 Apr | 15.2 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 7 Apr | 15.9 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 8 Apr | 15.3 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 9 Apr after | 18.7 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 10 Apr after | 18.3 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 11 Apr after | 17.4 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 12 Apr after | 19.5 °C | 25 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 13 Apr after | 18.8 °C | 31 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 14 Apr after | 9.6 °C | 63 % | 40 km/h | 17.2 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.
Detections table · 12Every 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 Kakanj fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 April 2020 to 8 April 2020 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 April 2020 to 7 April 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 106 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kakanj (106 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 15.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bosnia & Herzegovina (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: 123 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 7 April 2020 → 8 April 2020.
- Start date: 5 April 2020 → 4 April 2020.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 April 2020 to 7 April 2020. 12 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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 (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.