Kucevo Municipality fire, March 2020 Кучево · Kucevo Municipality
The fire started on 16 March 2020 in Kucevo Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 210 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 23th largest in Braničevski upravni okrug since 2016 (of 35 with a page). Number 7 in Serbia in 2020, of 23.
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- Burnt area
- 210ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 16 Mar 2020 – 19 Mar 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Mar
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 4
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 2
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 111MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
16 Mar 2020 · 111 MW · 4
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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.2 mm on 23 Mar.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 168 ha in 2017, 59 ha in 2018, 190 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 201 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
210 ha reached on 16 Mar0.3 %
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 woodland69 %
- Broadleaved forest22 %
- Agricultural areas8.6 %
- Other natural land1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Mar | 7.1 °C | 34 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 17 Mar | 13.8 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 18 Mar | 13.3 °C | 36 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 19 Mar | 15.1 °C | 32 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 20 Mar after | 18.5 °C | 26 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 21 Mar after | 18.3 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 22 Mar after | 7.1 °C | 48 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 23 Mar after | -0.5 °C | 65 % | 44 km/h | 10.2 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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 21 March 2020 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 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 · 4Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 810 haKucevo Municipality Кучево20 March 2019 · 6 days · 1 km away
- 1,104 haKucevo Municipality Кучево23 March 2022 · 6 days · 2 km away
- 864 haKucevo Municipality КучевоApril 2020 · 5 days · 2 km away
- 765 haKucevo Municipality КучевоMarch 2023 · 2 days · 2 km away
- 898 haVeliko Gradiste Municipality Велико ГрадиштеJune 2025 · 4 days · 22 km away
- 1,306 haSichevița25 February 2025 · 4 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kucevo Municipality fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 March 2020 and 19 March 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 210 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kucevo Municipality (210 ha, 0.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Kucevo Municipality and came within 8.1 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 15.1 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Serbia (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 ›
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4 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.
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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.