Kotel fire, 2 November 2022 Котел · Kotel
The fire started on 2 November 2022 in Kotel, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 250 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 3th largest in Sliven since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 23 in Bulgaria in 2022, of 41.
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- Burnt area
- 250ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 2 Nov 2022 – 5 Nov 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Nov
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 157 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 64MW
- 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 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 11 Nov.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 210 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
250 ha reached on 2 Nov0.3 %
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
- Other natural land100 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 97 %
- LIC Luda Kamchia BG0000139
- LIC Reka Mochuritsa BG0000196
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Nov | 25.3 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 3 Nov | 20.1 °C | 44 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Nov | 17.4 °C | 56 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 5 Nov | 20.3 °C | 48 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 6 Nov after | 17.9 °C | 56 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 7 Nov after | 16.2 °C | 54 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 8 Nov after | 17.1 °C | 53 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 9 Nov after | 16.3 °C | 55 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 10 Nov after | 15.1 °C | 63 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 11 Nov after | 12.3 °C | 76 % | 35 km/h | 4.9 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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 6 November 2022 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 375 haKotel КотелAugust 2019 · 1 day · 0 km away
- 1,636 haSungurlare СунгурлареAugust 2025 · 5 days · 15 km away
- 427 haKarnobat КарнобатAugust 2025 · 2 days · 31 km away
- 378 haTundzha ТунджаJuly 2025 · 1 day · 31 km away
- 296 haKarnobat КарнобатSeptember 2016 · 9 days · 34 km away
- 344 haKarnobat КарнобатJune 2025 · 2 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kotel fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 November 2022 to 5 November 2022 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 November 2022 to 4 November 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 250 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kotel (250 ha, 0.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Kotel and came within 17.7 km of its centre. 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 25.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
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.
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 2 November 2022 to 4 November 2022. 6 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 ADM2 (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.