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Lukovit fire, July 2021 Луковит · Lukovit

Out · last detection 29 Jul 2021, 12:26 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2021 in Lukovit, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 300 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Lovech since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 2 in Bulgaria in 2021, of 13.

Burnt area
300ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
29 Jul 2021 – 30 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Jul
2021
Heat detections
13
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
179MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul30 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

29

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
19km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 6 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Lukovit Луковит 15,128 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the town where it started
    300 ha reached on 29 Jul
    0.7 %

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

  • Agricultural areas94 %
  • Broadleaved forest6.3 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 82 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
29 Jul 38.1 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul 35.7 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Jul after 35.3 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
1 Aug after 37.9 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Aug after 39.4 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Aug after 33.2 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
4 Aug after 34.6 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Aug after 38.3 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 46
6 Aug after 28.9 °C 32 % 41 km/h 5.5 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2021
After · 6 Aug 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 30 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1044 µg/m³
272829303112
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 · 13Every 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 Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lukovit fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 29 July 2021 and 30 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 300 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lukovit (300 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.1 km of Lukovit. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 19 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 Bulgaria (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: 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
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.

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 (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.