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BA · Bosnia & Herzegovina · –

Mrkonjić Grad fire, 9 April 2020 Mrkonjić Grad

Out · last measured on 12 Apr 2020

The fire started on 9 April 2020 in Mrkonjić Grad, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 266 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 183th largest in Republika Srpska since 2016 (of 391 with a page). Number 77 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2020, of 183.

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
266ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
9 Apr 2020 – 12 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Apr
2020
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

20°high
39km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.6 mm on 14 Apr.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 266 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mrkonjić Grad where it started
    265 ha
    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

  • Other natural land73 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland27 %

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)
9 Apr 19.6 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
10 Apr 18.8 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
11 Apr 18.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
12 Apr 20.1 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
13 Apr after 18.5 °C 36 % 58 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 14
14 Apr after 10.4 °C 76 % 39 km/h 20.6 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 10.6, a minimum humidity of 19% and 8 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 31.

FWI at the start 10.6
Minimum humidity 19 %
Days without rain 8
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kakanj fire, March 2022
176 ha 4 days FWI 12.5 Min. humidity 19 % 89 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 18.7 mm on 31 Mar.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
176 ha
median area
10 %
went past 1,000 ha
9.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 31 of 31 had it)

It was 1.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 4 days, against 3 days.

Only 10 of its 31 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 9.5 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

20.6 mmfirst rain
14 Apr2 days after it ended
39km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Apr, and on 14 Apr 20.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 31 of 31, with a median of 9.5 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 · 2 Apr 2020
After · 19 Apr 2020

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

Other fires nearby

All fires in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mrkonjić Grad fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 April 2020 and 12 April 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 266 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mrkonjić Grad (265 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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.
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: 31. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 176 ha; 10 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 10 of its 31 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 9.5 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: 123 · 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.

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 123 · 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 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.