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HR · Croatia · –

Općina Hrvace fire, August 2026 Općina Hrvace

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2026, 11:28 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Općina Hrvace, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 202 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Split-Dalmatia since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 13 in Croatia in 2026, of 25.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.1 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
202ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 10days
29 Aug 2026 – 7 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2026
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
20MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug7 Sept
6 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

29 Aug 2026 · 13 MW · 1 5 Sept 2026 · 5 MW · 6 6 Sept 2026 · 44 MW · 12
29 Aug 5 Sept 6 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

28°high
52km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 19.7 mm on 11 Sept.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 202 ha in 2017, 183 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 202 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Općina Hrvace where it started
    182 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.8 %

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 land100 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

  • ZEPA + LIC Dinara HR1000028 · HR5000028

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
29 Aug 27.2 °C 33 % 52 km/h 1.2 mm High 33
30 Aug 26.5 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 19
31 Aug 27.6 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Sept 25.7 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Sept 26.4 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
3 Sept 25.0 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Sept 26.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Sept 27.4 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Sept 26.2 °C 34 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Sept 27.7 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Sept after 27.3 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Sept after 25.0 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
10 Sept after 22.9 °C 45 % 44 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
11 Sept after 19.8 °C 63 % 59 km/h 19.7 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 32.9, a minimum humidity of 33% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.

FWI at the start 32.9
Minimum humidity 33 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Općina Civljane fire, August 2026
677 ha 3 days FWI 32.9 Min. humidity 31 % 19 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.0 mm on 25 Aug.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
303 ha
median area
35 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 17 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 202 ha against a median of 303 ha. It lasted 10 days, against 3 days.

In 2 of 17, 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 2.5 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

19.7 mmfirst rain
11 Sept4 days after it ended
52km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Sept, and on 11 Sept 19.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 17, with a median of 2.5 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 · 22 Aug 2026
After · 14 Sept 2026

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 31 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1070 µg/m³
Optical depth0.73
27 Aug29 Aug31 Aug
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 · 19Every 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 Hrvace fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (29 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 7 September 2026 (10 days from 29 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 202 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Općina Hrvace (182 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
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: 17. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 303 ha; 35 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 17, 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 2.5 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: 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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 19 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.