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Karbintsi fire, August 2016 Општина Карбинци · Karbintsi, Shtip

Out · last detection 29 Aug 2016, 00:18 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2016 in Karbintsi, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 543 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in East since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 3 in North Macedonia in 2016, of 5.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.0 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
543ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
28 Aug 2016 – 29 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2016
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
37MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug29 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2829

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
26km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.0 mm on 1 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Karbintsi Општина Карбинци 3,420 inhabitants · 6.4 km from the town where it started
    452 ha reached on 28 Aug
    2.0 %
  2. Shtip Општина Штип 44,866 inhabitants · 14.6 km from the town
    92 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas58 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland40 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.5 %

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)
28 Aug 31.5 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Aug 32.4 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Aug after 32.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Aug after 32.2 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Sept after 31.1 °C 35 % 30 km/h 10.0 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2016
After · 5 Sept 2016

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 31 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1042 µg/m³
2627282930311
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 · 6Every 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 Karbintsi fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 28 August 2016 and 29 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 543 hectares (5.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Karbintsi (452 ha, 2.0 %); Shtip (92 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.4 km of Karbintsi. 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 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.