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Novatsi fire, August 2019 Општина Новаци · Novatsi

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2019, 00:12 UTC

The fire started on 28 August 2019 in Novatsi, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,471 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 4 in North Macedonia in 2019, of 77.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.7 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: Mariovo · 2024Mogila · 2026Prilep · 2026Prilep · 2019

Burnt area
1,471ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
28 Aug 2019 – 2 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
28 Aug
2019
Heat detections
40
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
32MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Aug2 Sept
2 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

28 Aug 2019 · 7 MW · 3 29 Aug 2019 · 53 MW · 9 30 Aug 2019 · 13 MW · 2 31 Aug 2019 · 79 MW · 9 1 Sept 2019 · 37 MW · 14 2 Sept 2019 · 3 MW · 3
28 Aug 29 Aug 30 Aug 31 Aug 1 Sept 2 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

29°high
45km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 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 0.9% of the area of London (15 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. Novatsi Општина Новаци 2,648 inhabitants · 12.3 km from the centre where it started
    1,474 ha reached on 28 Aug
    2.0 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland53 %
  • Agricultural areas22 %
  • Broadleaved forest21 %
  • Other natural land4.2 %

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)
28 Aug 27.2 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Aug 29.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Aug 28.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Aug 27.1 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Sept 28.1 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Sept 29.0 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept after 28.1 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Sept after 25.0 °C 31 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Sept after 25.4 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Sept after 25.9 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Sept after 23.7 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.7 mm High 23
8 Sept after 25.0 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Sept after 25.7 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept after 25.0 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 26
11 Sept after 23.8 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Aug 2019
After · 9 Sept 2019

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 26 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
2627282930311234
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 · 40Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Novatsi fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 August 2019 to 2 September 2019 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 August 2019 to 1 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,471 hectares (14.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Novatsi (1,474 ha, 2.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Novatsi and came within 12.3 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 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of North Macedonia (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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 August 2019 to 1 September 2019. 40 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 (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.