Skip to content
worldfires
ME · Montenegro ·

Mojkovac Municipality fire, 28 October 2019 Mojkovac Municipality

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2019, 12:25 UTC

The fire started on 28 October 2019 in Mojkovac Municipality, Montenegro, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 205 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 16 in Montenegro in 2019, of 31.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.6 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
205ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
28 Oct 2019 – 28 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Oct
2019
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
44MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct28 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

28 Oct 2019 · 44 MW · 8

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

The weather it burned in

17°high
12km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 2 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mojkovac Municipality where it started
    205 ha reached on 28 Oct
    0.6 %

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

  • Other natural land100 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
28 Oct 16.6 °C 20 % 12 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Oct after 13.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
30 Oct after 11.6 °C 43 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
31 Oct after 5.2 °C 71 % 20 km/h 0.2 mm Low 8
1 Nov after 6.9 °C 60 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
2 Nov after 6.9 °C 83 % 56 km/h 3.2 mm Low 7

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 15.7, a minimum humidity of 20% and 23 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 69.

FWI at the start 15.7
Minimum humidity 20 %
Days without rain 23
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bijelo Polje Municipality fire, March 2019
122 ha 5 days FWI 15.7 Min. humidity 20 % 29 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.6 mm on 5 Apr.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
172 ha
median area
6 %
went past 1,000 ha
12.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 69 of 69 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (205 ha against a median of 172 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 3 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 12.7 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

3.2 mmfirst rain
2 Nov5 days after it ended
12km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Oct, and on 2 Nov 3.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 69 of 69, with a median of 12.7 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 · 21 Oct 2019
After · 4 Nov 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 8Every 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 Montenegro

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mojkovac Municipality fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 28 October 2019 and 28 October 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 205 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mojkovac Municipality (205 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 16.6 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 12 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Montenegro (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: 69. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 172 ha; 6 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 12.7 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 · 123 · 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.

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 · 123.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 8 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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 ADM1 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.