Mostar fire, 25 August 2024 Mostar, Stolac, Čapljina
The fire started on 25 August 2024 in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 364 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 176th largest in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 520 with a page). Number 29 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2024, of 87.
- Burnt area
- 364ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 25 Aug 2024 – 26 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 16
- in a single hotspot: 60 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 318MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 27 Aug.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 281 ha in 2017, 340 ha in 2020, 289 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 357 ha that had burned before.
- 340 ha Mostar fire, July 2020 653 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 289 ha Mostar fire, July 2022 445 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 281 ha Mostar fire, August 2017 913 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mostar where it started293 ha reached on 25 Aug0.3 %
-
55 ha reached on 25 Aug0.2 %
-
15 ha reached on 25 Aug0.1 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub62 %
- Broadleaved forest35 %
- Other natural land1.9 %
- Agricultural areas0.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 37.5 °C | 27 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 26 Aug | 37.6 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Aug after | 35.4 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 24 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 29 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 16Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mostar fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2024 and 26 August 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 364 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mostar (293 ha, 0.3 %); Stolac (55 ha, 0.2 %); Čapljina (15 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bosnia & Herzegovina (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: 123 · 112
Satellite cross-check
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
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 ADM3 (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.