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HR · Croatia ·

Općina Promina fire, July 2017 Općina Promina, Grad Drniš

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2017, 02:15 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2017 in Općina Promina, Croatia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 184 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 42th largest in Šibenik-Knin since 2016 (of 56 with a page). Number 64 in Croatia in 2017, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.2 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
184ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
14 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Jul
2017
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
12MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

14 Jul 2017 · 12 MW · 7

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
43km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 21 Jul.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 162 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Općina Promina where it started
    102 ha reached on 14 Jul
    0.7 %
  2. 82 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Other natural land53 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub32 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland15 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-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 Extreme FWI: 5.1 % of the area in Croatia

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
14 Jul 31.6 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Jul after 29.8 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Jul after 26.2 °C 28 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
17 Jul after 30.2 °C 24 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jul after 32.1 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jul after 32.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul after 32.9 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jul after 35.1 °C 27 % 32 km/h 1.4 mm Very high 46

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 51.1, a minimum humidity of 23% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 20.

FWI at the start 51.1
Minimum humidity 23 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Grad Drniš fire, August 2017
121 ha 2 days FWI 51.9 Min. humidity 25 % 7 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 14.4 mm on 12 Aug.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
298 ha
median area
20 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 20 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 184 ha against a median of 298 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 9 of 20, 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 2.8 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

1.4 mmfirst rain
21 Jul7 days after it ended
43km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Jul, and on 21 Jul 1.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 20, with a median of 2.8 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 · 7 Jul 2017
After · 21 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.

Detections table · 7Every 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 Promina fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 July 2017 and 14 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 184 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Općina Promina (102 ha, 0.7 %); Grad Drniš (82 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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: 20. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 298 ha; 20 % went past 1,000 ha. In 9 of 20, 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 2.8 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. 7 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.

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.