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Pazardzhik fire, July 2024 Пазарджик · Pazardzhik, Lesichovo

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2024, 11:41 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2024 in Pazardzhik, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 424 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 21 in Bulgaria in 2024, of 62.

Burnt area
424ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
18 Jul 2024 – 18 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2024
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 102 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
211MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
30km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 21 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Pazardzhik Пазарджик 87,766 inhabitants · 12.1 km from the town where it started
    257 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.4 %
  2. Lesichovo Лесичово 4,625 inhabitants · 13.4 km from the town
    167 ha
    0.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas56 %
  • Broadleaved forest26 %
  • Mixed forest9.4 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland8.0 %

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)
18 Jul 38.8 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm High 37
19 Jul after 35.4 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
20 Jul after 35.9 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Jul after 34.3 °C 41 % 29 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 11 Jul 2024
After · 25 Jul 2024

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 18 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1013 µg/m³
Optical depth0.55
161718192021
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 · 3Every 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 Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pazardzhik fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2024 and 18 July 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 424 hectares (4.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pazardzhik (257 ha, 0.4 %); Lesichovo (167 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 12.1 km of Pazardzhik. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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 (Public Domain). 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.