Kukës fire, August 2021 Kukës, Mirditë
The fire started on 9 August 2021 in Kukës, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,419 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Kukës since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 2 in Albania in 2021, of 51.
- Burnt area
- 4,419ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 9 Aug 2021 – 14 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 635
- in a single hotspot: 160 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.1GW
- sum of detected power
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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68 ha in 2018, 32 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
Kukës where it started3,821 ha reached on 2 Aug4.0 %
-
605 ha reached on 10 Aug0.7 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland33 %
- Broadleaved forest26 %
- Mixed forest25 %
- Other natural land8.4 %
- Coniferous forest3.9 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub2.9 %
- Agricultural areas1.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Aug | 29.8 °C | 27 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Aug | 29.2 °C | 32 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Aug | 27.5 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Aug | 25.3 °C | 31 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Aug | 24.4 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 14 Aug | 25.1 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Aug after | 25.8 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 16 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 Aug after | 26.2 °C | 34 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Aug after | 20.4 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 19 Aug after | 20.5 °C | 37 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Aug after | 22.5 °C | 38 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Aug after | 21.6 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
| 22 Aug after | 23.2 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 23 Aug after | 25.9 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 24 Aug after | 24.5 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 25 |
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 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 47 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 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 · 635Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kukës fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2021 and 14 August 2021: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,419 hectares (44.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kukës (3,821 ha, 4.0 %); Mirditë (605 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (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: 128 · 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
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 2.5 Generic). 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.