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MK · North Macedonia · –

Makedonski Brod fire, 10 August 2026 Општина Македонски Брод · Makedonski Brod

Out · last detection 24 Aug 2026, 10:32 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2026 in Makedonski Brod, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 336 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Southwest since 2016 (of 62 with a page). Number 17 in North Macedonia in 2026, of 40.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Staro Nagorichane · 2026Sarandë · 2025Makedonski Brod · 2025Makedonski Brod · 2019

Burnt area
336ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 15days
10 Aug 2026 – 24 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Aug
2026
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Average daily power
67MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug24 Aug
24 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2026 · 4 MW · 1 21 Aug 2026 · 166 MW · 4 22 Aug 2026 · 5 MW · 3 23 Aug 2026 · 67 MW · 6 24 Aug 2026 · 95 MW · 6
20 Aug 21 Aug 22 Aug 23 Aug 24 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

33°high
41km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 28 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 · 7.3 km from the centre where it started
    336 ha reached on 20 Aug
    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

  • Broadleaved forest50 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland43 %
  • Other natural land6.2 %

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)
10 Aug 30.3 °C 39 % 17 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
11 Aug 31.4 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Aug 31.1 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Aug 28.4 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Aug 27.2 °C 43 % 28 km/h 1.1 mm High 30
15 Aug 26.6 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Aug 28.3 °C 33 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Aug 29.7 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Aug 28.6 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Aug 28.6 °C 35 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Aug 31.9 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Aug 32.8 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug 31.9 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
23 Aug 30.9 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Aug 31.0 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
25 Aug after 31.5 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Aug after 30.7 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
27 Aug after 31.8 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Aug after 32.7 °C 34 % 40 km/h 2.5 mm High 35

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 27.2, a minimum humidity of 39% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.

FWI at the start 27.2
Minimum humidity 39 %
Days without rain 13
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Staro Nagorichane fire, September 2026
136 ha 1 day FWI 27.3 Min. humidity 41 % 86 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.1 mm on 25 Sept.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
341 ha
median area
16 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 12 of 19 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (336 ha against a median of 341 ha) and lasted 15 days, against 3 days.

In 7 of 19, 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 2.5 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

2.5 mmfirst rain
28 Aug4 days after it ended
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Aug, and on 28 Aug 2.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 12 of 19, with a median of 2.5 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 · 3 Aug 2026
After · 31 Aug 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 10 August 2026 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
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.37
8 Aug10 Aug12 Aug
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 · 20Every 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?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (10 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 24 August 2026 (15 days from 10 August 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 336 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Makedonski Brod (336 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Makedonski Brod and came within 7.3 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 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.
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: 19. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 341 ha; 16 % went past 1,000 ha. In 7 of 19, 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 2.5 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: 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 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 193 · 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. 20 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.