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BA · Bosnia & Herzegovina · –

Kupres (BiH) fire, March 2021 Kupres (BiH)

Out · last detection 3 Mar 2021, 12:00 UTC

The fire started on 2 March 2021 in Kupres (BiH), Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 239 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 256th largest in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 520 with a page). Number 43 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2021, of 86.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.6 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
239ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
2 Mar 2021 – 3 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Mar
2021
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
14MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Mar3 Mar
3 Mar 2021

How it evolved, day by day

2 Mar 2021 · 5 MW · 1 3 Mar 2021 · 23 MW · 3
2 Mar 3 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

14°high
28km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 5 Mar.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016, 239 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Kupres (BiH) where it started
    239 ha reached on 2 Mar
    0.4 %

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 land83 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland17 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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 Mar 10.6 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
3 Mar 13.9 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
4 Mar after 10.7 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
5 Mar after 7.1 °C 63 % 39 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 4.1, a minimum humidity of 26% and 12 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 4.1
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 12
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Glamoč fire, March 2020
856 ha 3 days FWI 3.8 Min. humidity 28 % 33 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 22 Mar.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
263 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
10.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 15 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (239 ha against a median of 263 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 3 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 10.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

4.0 mmfirst rain
5 Mar2 days after it ended
28km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Mar, and on 5 Mar 4.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 15, with a median of 10.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Feb 2021
After · 10 Mar 2021

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 4Every 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 Bosnia & Herzegovina

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kupres (BiH) fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 March 2021 to 3 March 2021 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 March 2021 to 3 March 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 239 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kupres (BiH) (239 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 13.9 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class Very low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bosnia & Herzegovina (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 263 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 10.6 mm.

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: 123 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 3 March 2021 → 2 March 2021.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 123 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 March 2021 to 3 March 2021. 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.
  • 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.

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 ADM3 (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.