Općina Plaški fire, March 2022 Općina Plaški
The fire started on 23 March 2022 in Općina Plaški, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 116 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 16th largest in Karlovac since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 53 in Croatia in 2022, of 59.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.3 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…
- Burnt area
- 116ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 23 Mar 2022 – 23 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Mar
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 8
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 31MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
23 Mar 2022 · 31 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
It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 30 Mar.
This area had burned before
47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 52 ha in 2019, 5 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 54 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Općina Plaški where it started116 ha reached on 23 Mar0.7 %
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 woodland66 %
- Agricultural areas28 %
- Artificial surfaces6.0 %
- Broadleaved forest0.9 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Dolina Dretulje HR2000609
- LIC Ogulinsko-plaščansko područje HR2000592
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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Mar | 18.0 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 24 Mar after | 22.0 °C | 10 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 25 Mar after | 19.6 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 26 Mar after | 20.2 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 27 Mar after | 20.0 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 11 |
| 28 Mar after | 20.7 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 29 Mar after | 18.4 °C | 33 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 30 Mar after | 13.9 °C | 58 % | 41 km/h | 1.9 mm | Very low 2 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 25 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 533 haGrad SlunjFebruary 2020 · 4 days · 15 km away
- 454 haGrad Otočac22 March 2022 · 6 days · 20 km away
- 623 haGrad Slunj24 March 2022 · 2 days · 21 km away
- 636 haGrad Slunj4 March 2021 · 2 days · 23 km away
- 637 haOpćina BarilovićMarch 2022 · 1 day · 33 km away
- 520 haBihaćFebruary 2019 · 4 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Općina Plaški fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 23 March 2022 and 23 March 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 116 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Općina Plaški (116 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 18.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
- 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.
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.
No changes 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
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.
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.