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Moldovenești fire, 18 March 2022 Moldovenești, Unirea, Călărași

Out · last measured on 18 Mar 2022

The fire started on 18 March 2022 in Moldovenești, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 103 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Cluj since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 180 in Romania in 2022, of 186.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Buceș · 2025Domașnea · 2025Rametea · 2022Băișoara · 2022

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
103ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
18 Mar 2022 – 18 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
18 Mar
2022
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

7°high
23km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Moldovenești where it started
    99 ha
    0.7 %
  2. Unirea 4,497 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the centre
    3 ha
    0.0 %
  3. Călărași 1,883 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the centre
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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.

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)
18 Mar 7.2 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
19 Mar after 7.2 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
20 Mar after 7.4 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
21 Mar after 11.7 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
22 Mar after 17.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
23 Mar after 18.5 °C 11 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
24 Mar after 20.1 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
25 Mar after 13.1 °C 26 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 Mar after 17.2 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
27 Mar after 15.3 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Mar after 18.0 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 0.3, a minimum humidity of 19% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 34.

FWI at the start 0.3
Minimum humidity 19 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Buceș fire, March 2025
273 ha 4 days FWI 1.1 Min. humidity 18 % 65 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 15.0 mm on 11 Mar.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
240 ha
median area
9 %
went past 1,000 ha
9.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 34 of 34 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 103 ha against a median of 240 ha. It 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 9.0 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
23km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 18 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 34 of 34, with a median of 9.0 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 · 11 Mar 2022
After · 25 Mar 2022

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 16 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1036 µg/m³
16 Mar18 Mar20 Mar
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Romania

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Moldovenești fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 March 2022 and 18 March 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 103 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Moldovenești (99 ha, 0.7 %); Unirea (3 ha, 0.0 %); Călărași (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 3.5 km of the centre of Călărași, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 7.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, class Very low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (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: 34. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 240 ha; 9 % 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 9.0 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 · 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 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 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.