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BA · Bosnia & Herzegovina · –

Kalinovik fire, 12 April 2020 Kalinovik

Out · last detection 19 Apr 2020, 11:22 UTC

The fire started on 12 April 2020 in Kalinovik, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,412 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Republika Srpska since 2016 (of 391 with a page). Number 10 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2020, of 183.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.4 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
1,412ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
8days
12 Apr 2020 – 19 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Apr
2020
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
7MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Apr19 Apr
19 Apr 2020

How it evolved, day by day

12 Apr 2020 · 4 MW · 1 13 Apr 2020 · 15 MW · 5 18 Apr 2020 · 3 MW · 1 19 Apr 2020 · 6 MW · 1
12 Apr 13 Apr 18 Apr 19 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

19°high
56km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.1 mm on 21 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.9% of the area of London (14 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Kalinovik where it started
    1,414 ha reached on 12 Apr
    2.1 %

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

  • Other natural land93 %
  • Agricultural areas4.8 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.2 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland0.9 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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)
12 Apr 16.6 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
13 Apr 15.5 °C 33 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
14 Apr 8.7 °C 55 % 41 km/h 12.9 mm Very low 0
15 Apr 4.9 °C 45 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
16 Apr 16.5 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
17 Apr 18.4 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
18 Apr 19.2 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
19 Apr 18.6 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
20 Apr after 10.4 °C 67 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 4
21 Apr after 5.5 °C 80 % 29 km/h 16.1 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 7.5, a minimum humidity of 24% and 10 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 46.

FWI at the start 7.5
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 10
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bileća fire, March 2019
1,314 ha 5 days FWI 7.6 Min. humidity 24 % 67 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.5 mm on 4 Apr.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
203 ha
median area
7 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 45 of 46 had it)

It was 7.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 8 days, against 3 days.

None of its 46 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 46, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.5 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

16.1 mmfirst rain
21 Apr2 days after it ended
56km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Apr, and on 21 Apr 16.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 45 of 46, with a median of 3.5 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Apr 2020
After · 26 Apr 2020

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 · 8Every 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 Bosnia & Herzegovina

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kalinovik fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 April 2020 to 19 April 2020 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 April 2020 to 17 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,412 hectares (14.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kalinovik (1,414 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 56 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 46. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 203 ha; 7 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 46 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 1 of 46, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.5 mm.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 17 April 2020 → 19 April 2020.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 123 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 April 2020 to 17 April 2020. 8 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.