How long did the Lyubimets fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2021 and 24 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 317 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lyubimets (317 ha, 1.0 %); Harmanli (0 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.9 km of Lyubimets. 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 28.3 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 46 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 Bulgaria (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

BG · Bulgaria · 2021-07-23 → 2021-07-24

Lyubimets fire, July 2021 Любимец · Lyubimets, Harmanli

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2021, 00:55 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2021 in Lyubimets, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 317 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Haskovo since 2016 (of 46 with a page). The largest in Bulgaria in 2021, of 13.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.7 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: 317ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 23 Jul 2021 – 24 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 23 Jul; 2021
Heat detections: 10; in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 12MW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Jul 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul24 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2324

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

46km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 295 ha in 2016.

295 ha Lyubimets fire, August 2016 1,168 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Lyubimets Любимец 8,499 inhabitants · 10.9 km from the town where it started

317 ha reached on 23 Jul

1.0 %
Harmanli Харманли 22,716 inhabitants · 23.7 km from the town

0 ha

0.0 %

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 areas66 %
Mixed forest24 %
Scrub and transitional woodland11 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

ZEPA + LIC Sakar BG0000212 · BG0002021

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)
23 Jul	28.2 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Jul	28.3 °C	33 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Jul after	29.2 °C	36 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
26 Jul after	31.4 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Jul after	33.8 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Jul after	35.4 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
29 Jul after	36.2 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
30 Jul after	36.8 °C	29 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
31 Jul after	36.3 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	High 31
1 Aug after	35.5 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
2 Aug after	37.8 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
3 Aug after	35.9 °C	28 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Jul 2021

After · 31 Jul 2021

Before After

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 27 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1031 µg/m³

WHO 15

21222324252627

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 · 10Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Lyubimets fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2021 and 24 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 317 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lyubimets (317 ha, 1.0 %); Harmanli (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.9 km of Lyubimets. 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 28.3 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 46 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 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

ГДПБЗН · Пожарна безопасност и защита на населението ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned