How long did the Kavadartsi fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 August 2017 to 12 August 2017 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 August 2017 to 8 August 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 925 hectares (9.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kavadartsi (590 ha, 0.6 %); Prilep (336 ha, 0.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 12.9 km of the centre of Prilep, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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.

MK · North Macedonia · 2017-08-04 → 2017-08-12

Kavadartsi fire, August 2017 Општина Кавадарци · Kavadartsi, Prilep

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2017, 11:34 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2017 in Kavadartsi, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 925 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Vardar since 2016 (of 49 with a page). Number 5 in North Macedonia in 2017, of 44.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mariovo · 2024 Gradsko · 2024 Prilep · 2026 Prilep · 2019

Burnt area: 925ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 9days; 4 Aug 2017 – 12 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 4 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 65; in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 114MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug12 Aug

Play back 11 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

5 Aug 6 Aug 7 Aug 9 Aug 10 Aug 11 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

38km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 12 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (9.2 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

Kavadartsi Општина Кавадарци 35,733 inhabitants · 20.5 km from the centre where it started

590 ha reached on 5 Aug

0.6 %
Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 12.9 km from the centre

336 ha reached on 5 Aug

0.3 %

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

Scrub and transitional woodland64 %
Other natural land25 %
Broadleaved forest11 %

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)
5 Aug	33.3 °C	16 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Aug	33.8 °C	19 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Aug	32.2 °C	26 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
8 Aug	31.0 °C	35 %	28 km/h	1.0 mm	Moderate 20
9 Aug	30.0 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
10 Aug	31.0 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
11 Aug	31.8 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
12 Aug	33.0 °C	16 %	57 km/h	1.9 mm	High 34

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Jul 2017

After · 19 Aug 2017

Before After

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 7 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1033 µg/m³

WHO 15

34567891011

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 · 65Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kavadartsi fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 August 2017 to 12 August 2017 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 August 2017 to 8 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 925 hectares (9.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kavadartsi (590 ha, 0.6 %); Prilep (336 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 12.9 km of the centre of Prilep, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Центар за управување со кризи ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 August 2017 to 8 August 2017. 65 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.

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 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.

Where it burned