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BA · Bosnia & Herzegovina · –

Kupres (BiH) fire, September 2026 Tomislavgrad, Prozor-Rama, Kupres (BiH)

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2026, 00:48 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2026 in Kupres (BiH), Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 13,227 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 521 with a page). The largest in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2026, of 95.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bileća · 2017Grad Drniš · 2016Prozor-Rama · 2016Prozor-Rama · 2023

Burnt area
13,227ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 6days
4 Sept 2026 – 9 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2026
Heat detections
1,109
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept9 Sept
9 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

4 Sept 2026 · 7 MW · 2 5 Sept 2026 · 4,459 MW · 303 6 Sept 2026 · 7,520 MW · 533 7 Sept 2026 · 2,335 MW · 208 8 Sept 2026 · 479 MW · 62 9 Sept 2026 · 1 MW · 1
4 Sept 6 Sept 8 Sept

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (16 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

26°high
37km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 18.2 mm on 11 Sept.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,904 ha in 2016, 259 ha in 2017, 527 ha in 2020, 173 ha in 2021, 944 ha in 2023, 610 ha in 2024, 283 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,795 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.4% of the area of London (132 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

  1. Tomislavgrad
    5,165 ha reached on 5 Sept
    5.2 %
  2. Prozor-Rama
    4,983 ha reached on 5 Sept
    11 %
  3. Kupres (BiH) where it started
    3,079 ha reached on 4 Sept
    5.4 %

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 land81 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland16 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.1 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.34 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.34 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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

Checked against the press

Checked on 4 November 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Požar kod Kupresa · Tomislavgradski požar · Požar na Ljubuši

Sources

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)
4 Sept 23.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Sept 25.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Sept 22.7 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 24.6 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Sept 25.2 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Sept 22.4 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
10 Sept after 22.2 °C 44 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
11 Sept after 15.7 °C 75 % 57 km/h 18.2 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 25.6, a minimum humidity of 33% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 50.

FWI at the start 25.6
Minimum humidity 33 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bileća fire, August 2017
129 ha 3 days FWI 28.0 Min. humidity 33 % 101 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
506 ha
median area
28 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 48 of 50 had it)

It was 26.2 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 4 days.

None of its 50 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 2 of 50, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.8 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

18.2 mmfirst rain
11 Sept2 days after it ended
37km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 9 Sept, and on 11 Sept 18.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 48 of 50, with a median of 2.8 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 · 28 Aug 2026
After · 16 Sept 2026

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 8 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 686 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 392: 26 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak686 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10759 µg/m³
Optical depth1.62
2 Sept5 Sept8 Sept11 Sept
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 · 1,109Every 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?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (4 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 9 September 2026 (6 days from 4 September 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 13,227 hectares (132.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tomislavgrad (5,165 ha, 5.2 %); Prozor-Rama (4,983 ha, 11 %); Kupres (BiH) (3,079 ha, 5.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.8 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class High.
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: 50. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 506 ha; 28 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 50 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 2 of 50, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.8 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 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 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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 1,109 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
  • 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 2025, 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.