Skip to content
worldfires
en
MK · North Macedonia · →

Makedonski Brod fire, 28 July 2017 Општина Македонски Брод · Makedonski Brod

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2017, 11:28 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2017 in Makedonski Brod, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 308 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Southwest since 2016 (of 62 with a page). Number 20 in North Macedonia in 2017, of 44.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Makedonski Brod · 2025Makedonski Brod · 2019Makedonski Brod · 2024Makedonski Brod · 2026

Burnt area
308ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
14days
28 Jul 2017 – 10 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Jul
2017
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
19MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul10 Aug
6 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

31 Jul 2017 · 12 MW · 1 1 Aug 2017 · 37 MW · 1 3 Aug 2017 · 4 MW · 1 4 Aug 2017 · 14 MW · 3 5 Aug 2017 · 19 MW · 3 6 Aug 2017 · 29 MW · 2
31 Jul 1 Aug 3 Aug 4 Aug 5 Aug 6 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
35km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 13 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. Makedonski Brod Општина Македонски Брод 5,889 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the centre where it started
    308 ha reached on 31 Jul
    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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland83 %
  • Other natural land10 %
  • Broadleaved forest6.6 %

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)
1 Aug 33.3 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 33.9 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Aug 34.4 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Aug 35.1 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Aug 35.6 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Aug 35.2 °C 19 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 33.3 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug 33.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
9 Aug 34.2 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 34.6 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug after 35.1 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug after 33.9 °C 18 % 57 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
13 Aug after 19.6 °C 55 % 53 km/h 2.1 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jul 2017
After · 17 Aug 2017

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 7 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1037 µg/m³
30311234567
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 · 11Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Makedonski Brod fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 July 2017 to 10 August 2017 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 August 2017 to 4 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 308 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Makedonski Brod (308 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Makedonski Brod and came within 4.5 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of North Macedonia (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: 193 · 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

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 193 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 August 2017 to 4 August 2017. 11 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.