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Lipănești fire, September 2024 Lipănești, Măgurele, Dumbrăvești

Out · last measured on 4 Sept 2024

The fire started on 4 September 2024 in Lipănești, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 677 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Prahova since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 3 in Romania in 2024, of 92.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Belene · 2026Islaz · 2017Podenii Noi · 2021Podenii Noi · 2022

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
677ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
4 Sept 2024 – 4 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2024
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
26km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 31.4 mm on 11 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (6.8 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. Lipănești where it started
    448 ha
    25 %
  2. Măgurele
    140 ha
    5.3 %
  3. Dumbrăvești
    64 ha
    2.2 %
  4. Boldești-Scăeni
    25 ha
    0.7 %

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

  • Agricultural areas83 %
  • Artificial surfaces12 %
  • Other land cover5.4 %

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)
4 Sept 31.0 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Sept after 29.1 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept after 26.5 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept after 28.4 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Sept after 27.8 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Sept after 28.4 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Sept after 26.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Sept after 20.7 °C 65 % 37 km/h 31.4 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 33.8, a minimum humidity of 25% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 27.

FWI at the start 33.8
Minimum humidity 25 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Belene fire, July 2026
159 ha 1 day FWI 33.4 Min. humidity 26 % 177 km away, in 2026

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

2 days
median duration
184 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 22 of 27 had it)

It was 3.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

Only 2 of its 27 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 5 of 27, 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 2.0 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

31.4 mmfirst rain
11 Sept7 days after it ended
26km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 4 Sept, and on 11 Sept 31.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 22 of 27, with a median of 2.0 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 2017.
  • 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 2024
After · 11 Sept 2024

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 5 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1059 µg/m³
Optical depth0.37
2 Sept4 Sept6 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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Romania

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lipănești fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 4 September 2024 and 4 September 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 677 hectares (6.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Lipănești (448 ha, 25 %); Măgurele (140 ha, 5.3 %); Dumbrăvești (64 ha, 2.2 %); Boldești-Scăeni (25 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (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 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 27. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 184 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 27 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 5 of 27, 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 2.0 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: 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 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.