Orșova fire, 21 September 2026 Orșova, Topleț
The fire started on 21 September 2026 in Orșova, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 122 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 70th largest in Mehedinți since 2016 (of 87 with a page). Number 49 in Romania in 2026, of 59.
The power measured by the satellite is low (5.8 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
- 122ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 17days
- 21 Sept 2026 – 7 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 6 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 4MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12 ha in 2025.
What happened to each town
-
122 ha reached on 21 Sept2.5 %
-
Topleț 2,246 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas43 %
- Broadleaved forest31 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland26 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Munții Almăjului - Locvei ROSPA0080
- LIC Porțile de Fier ROSCI0206
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Sept | 22.9 °C | 36 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Sept | 17.5 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Sept | 16.8 °C | 42 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Sept | 19.0 °C | 29 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Sept | 16.6 °C | 47 % | 20 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 26 Sept | 19.1 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 27 Sept | 22.5 °C | 29 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Sept | 23.8 °C | 27 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 29 Sept | 22.5 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Sept | 21.1 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Oct | 20.1 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 2 Oct | 20.0 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
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 1 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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
- 1,311 haKladovo Municipality КладовоAugust 2021 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 2,036 haKladovo Municipality КладовоSeptember 2024 · 3 days · 26 km away
- 1,896 haLăpușnicel6 March 2025 · 5 days · 30 km away
- 2,705 haLăpușnicel20 March 2022 · 9 days · 31 km away
- 1,897 haLăpușnicel23 March 2022 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 1,381 haSvinițaNovember 2024 · 8 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Orșova fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (21 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 7 October 2026 (17 days from 21 September 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 122 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Orșova (122 ha, 2.5 %); Topleț (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Orșova fire still active?
- No fire detections since 29 Sept 2026, 11:17 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Orșova and came within 1.9 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 22.9 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (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 · 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.
- 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. 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.