Burned area
satellite only470ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 26 January 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ME · Montenegro · –
Nikšić Municipality fire, 27 August 2017 Nikšić Municipality
Out · last detection 6 Sept 2017, 11:48 UTC
The fire started on 27 August 2017 in Nikšić Municipality, Montenegro, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 470 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 29 in Montenegro in 2017, of 75.
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only11days
27 Aug 2017 to 6 Sept 2017: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 6 Sept 2017, 11:48 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only27 Aug 2017
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 27 Aug 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only115
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 74 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 27 Aug 2017 – 6 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only405MW
Total radiative power on 1 September 2017; hotspots that day: 39.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 1 Sept 2017
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model43.3FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 5.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 27 Aug 2017, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model31.3°C · 10% RH
High of 31.3 °C and minimum humidity of 10% on 27 August 2017; gusts of 62 km/h on 2 September 2017.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 27 Aug 2017 – 6 Sept 2017
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 30 August 2017 → 6 September 2017.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 470 ha
- Dates
- 27 Aug 2017 – 6 Sept 2017
- Name
- Nikšić Municipality
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/niksic-municipality-2017-08-4?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire niksic-municipality-2017-08-4.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-08-27 | 12 | 40 | 31.3 | 14.4 | 10 | 8.9 | 31 | 0 | 43.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-28 | 6 | 14 | 27.8 | 14.3 | 32 | 13 | 36 | 0.2 | 38 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-29 | 4 | 25 | 23 | 12.7 | 41 | 16.3 | 52.6 | 0 | 40.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-30 | 12 | 190 | 28.2 | 9.2 | 10 | 8.2 | 27.7 | 0 | 37.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2017-08-31 | 23 | 208 | 27.9 | 12.1 | 18 | 10.5 | 33.8 | 0 | 46.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-09-01 | 39 | 405 | 28.6 | 13 | 26 | 12.3 | 38.2 | 0 | 47 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-09-02 | 16 | 41 | 26.9 | 12.5 | 34 | 17.4 | 62.3 | 6.2 | 46.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-09-03 | 0 | 0 | 15.2 | 10 | 70 | 16.3 | 59 | 17.4 | 0.1 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2017-09-04 | 0 | 0 | 20.2 | 7.6 | 29 | 7.9 | 26.3 | 0 | 1.3 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2017-09-05 | 0 | 0 | 20.1 | 9.6 | 26 | 10.9 | 33.8 | 0.3 | 9.1 | bajo | 1 |
| 2017-09-06 | 3 | 6 | 22.7 | 8.3 | 29 | 10.9 | 33.1 | 0 | 19.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2017-09-07 | 0 | 0 | 22.9 | 10 | 40 | 12 | 35.3 | 0 | 21.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2017-09-08 | 0 | 0 | 19.5 | 11.6 | 70 | 11.2 | 38.5 | 5.7 | 2.9 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 470ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 11days
- 27 Aug 2017 – 6 Sept 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 27 Aug
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 115
- in a single hotspot: 74 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 116MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
27 Aug6 Sept
6 Sept 2017
How it evolved, day by day
27 Aug
29 Aug
1 Sept
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
31°high
62km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity
It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.7 mm on 8 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Nikšić Municipality where it started471 ha reached on 27 Aug0.2 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland57 %
- Mixed forest38 %
- Broadleaved forest5.1 %
- Other natural land0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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)
Started with Very dry air: 3.1 % of the area in Montenegro
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 31.3 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Aug | 27.8 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 38 |
| 29 Aug | 23.0 °C | 41 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Aug | 28.2 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Aug | 27.9 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Sept | 28.6 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 2 Sept | 26.9 °C | 34 % | 62 km/h | 6.2 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Sept | 15.2 °C | 70 % | 59 km/h | 17.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 4 Sept | 20.2 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Sept | 20.1 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 9 |
| 6 Sept | 22.7 °C | 29 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 7 Sept after | 22.9 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 8 Sept after | 19.5 °C | 70 % | 38 km/h | 5.7 mm | Very low 3 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 43.3, a minimum humidity of 10% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 31.
FWI at the start
43.3
Minimum humidity
10 %
Days without rain
5
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Nikšić Municipality fire, 27 August 2017
470 ha
11 days
FWI 43.3
Min. humidity 10 %
Kursumlija Municipality fire, July 2025
199 ha
6 days
FWI 43.0
Min. humidity 12 %
182 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 10.7 mm on 9 Jul.
Municipality of Skenderaj fire, August 2025
115 ha
2 days
FWI 41.2
Min. humidity 11 %
162 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.5 mm on 17 Aug.
Municipality of Lipjan fire, August 2024
410 ha
2 days
FWI 40.5
Min. humidity 9 %
183 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.3 mm on 18 Aug.
Municipality of Kamenica fire, August 2025
431 ha
5 days
FWI 41.6
Min. humidity 13 %
227 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.1 mm on 18 Aug.
Pukë fire, August 2025
835 ha
5 days
FWI 44.3
Min. humidity 15 %
141 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.9 mm on 18 Aug.
What happened to them
- 2 days
- median duration
- 199 ha
- median area
- 6 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 3.1 mm
- rain at the end (median; 28 of 31 had it)
It was 2.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 11 days, against 2 days.
Only 7 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. In 3 of 31, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 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
5.7 mmfirst rain
8 Sept2 days after it ended
62km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 6 Sept, and on 8 Sept 5.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 28 of 31, with a median of 3.1 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 20 Aug 2017
After · 13 Sept 2017
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 115Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,784 haNikšić Municipality4 August 2021 · 21 days · 1 km away
- 4,394 haCetinje Municipality3 August 2021 · 20 days · 24 km away
- 14,076 haNikšić Municipality17 August 2026 · 26 days · 30 km away
- 4,021 haBilećaAugust 2026 · 12 days · 32 km away
- 7,850 haCetinje Municipality1 August 2021 · 24 days · 35 km away
- 3,061 haTrebinje8 August 2021 · 10 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nikšić Municipality fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 August 2017 to 6 September 2017 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 August 2017 to 30 August 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 470 hectares (4.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Nikšić Municipality (471 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
- 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: 31. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 199 ha; 6 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 7 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. In 3 of 31, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.1 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 30 August 2017 → 6 September 2017.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 August 2017 to 30 August 2017. 115 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 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.