Skip to content
worldfires
HR · Croatia ·

Općina Biskupija fire, 3 July 2017 Općina Biskupija, Općina Promina

Out · last detection 3 Jul 2017, 00:42 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2017 in Općina Biskupija, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 433 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 27th largest in Šibenik-Knin since 2016 (of 56 with a page). Number 37 in Croatia in 2017, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (2.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
433ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
3 Jul 2017 – 3 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
3 Jul
2017
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
9MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul3 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

3 Jul 2017 · 9 MW · 6

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
61km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Općina Biskupija where it started
    433 ha reached on 3 Jul
    3.4 %
  2. 0 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Other natural land93 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland5.1 %
  • Agricultural areas2.3 %

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)

Started with Strong wind: 25 % of the area in Croatia

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
3 Jul 26.3 °C 41 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
4 Jul after 28.9 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Jul after 32.0 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Jul after 33.4 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Jul after 34.1 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.4 mm High 35
8 Jul after 34.6 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Jul after 34.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Jul after 34.6 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jul after 33.7 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Jul after 33.1 °C 35 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jul after 30.3 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 15.9, a minimum humidity of 41% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 43.

FWI at the start 15.9
Minimum humidity 41 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Glamoč fire, August 2024
782 ha 4 days FWI 15.2 Min. humidity 39 % 70 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.3 mm on 21 Aug.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
253 ha
median area
16 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 38 of 43 had it)

It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 3 days.

Only 14 of its 43 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 5 of 43, 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 4.2 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

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
61km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 3 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 38 of 43, with a median of 4.2 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 · 26 Jun 2017
After · 10 Jul 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 6 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1012 µg/m³
1 Jul3 Jul5 Jul
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 · 6Every 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 Croatia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Općina Biskupija fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 3 July 2017 and 3 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 433 hectares (4.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Općina Biskupija (433 ha, 3.4 %); Općina Promina (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Croatia (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: 43. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 253 ha; 16 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 14 of its 43 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 5 of 43, 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 4.2 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 · 193 · 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 112 · 193.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 6 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-ShareAlike 2.0). 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.