Skip to content
worldfires
en
RS · Serbia · →

Negotin Municipality fire, March 2017 Неготин · Negotin Municipality

Out · last detection 20 Mar 2017, 11:35 UTC

The fire started on 15 March 2017 in Negotin Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 585 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Borski upravni okrug since 2016 (of 61 with a page). Number 4 in Serbia in 2017, of 24.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Negotin Municipality · 2024Jiana · 2021Kladovo Municipality · 2024Devesel · 2021

Burnt area
585ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
15 Mar 2017 – 20 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Mar
2017
Heat detections
12
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
16MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Mar20 Mar
20 Mar 2017

How it evolved, day by day

15 Mar 2017 · 21 MW · 5 16 Mar 2017 · 11 MW · 1 19 Mar 2017 · 30 MW · 5 20 Mar 2017 · 3 MW · 1
15 Mar 16 Mar 19 Mar 20 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

20°high
59km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (5.8 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Negotin Municipality Неготин 28,261 inhabitants · 5.9 km from the centre where it started
    585 ha reached on 15 Mar
    0.5 %

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 forest44 %
  • Agricultural areas31 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland25 %

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)
19 Mar 12.4 °C 51 % 59 km/h 2.7 mm Very low 1
20 Mar 19.8 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
21 Mar after 21.9 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
22 Mar after 22.7 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
23 Mar after 20.7 °C 35 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
24 Mar after 24.2 °C 22 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
25 Mar after 16.3 °C 53 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
26 Mar after 12.2 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
27 Mar after 14.3 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
28 Mar after 19.5 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
29 Mar after 22.7 °C 23 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
30 Mar after 22.1 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 8 Mar 2017
After · 27 Mar 2017

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 18 March 2017 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1035 µg/m³
1314151617181920212223
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 · 12Every 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 Serbia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Negotin Municipality fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 March 2017 to 20 March 2017 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 March 2017 to 20 March 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 585 hectares (5.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Negotin Municipality (585 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Negotin Municipality and came within 5.9 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 19.8 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, class Very low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Serbia (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: 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

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.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 March 2017 to 20 March 2017. 12 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 (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.