Skip to content
worldfires
RS · Serbia · –

Pecinci Municipality fire, August 2026 Пећинци · Pecinci Municipality, Belgrade

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2026, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2026 in Pecinci Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 204 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 23 in Serbia in 2026, of 54.

Burnt area
204ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 11days
7 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
7 Aug
2026
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 37 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
29MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug17 Aug
13 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

7 Aug 2026 · 9 MW · 2 9 Aug 2026 · 31 MW · 4 11 Aug 2026 · 82 MW · 6 12 Aug 2026 · 8 MW · 2 13 Aug 2026 · 14 MW · 2
7 Aug 9 Aug 11 Aug 12 Aug 13 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
35km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 18 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Pecinci Municipality Пећинци 18,401 inhabitants · 13.0 km from the centre where it started
    201 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.4 %
  2. Belgrade Градска општина Сопот 182,624 inhabitants · 41.5 km from the centre
    4 ha
    0.0 %

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 areas96 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland4.4 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside 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)
7 Aug 36.6 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 32.0 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
9 Aug 32.7 °C 32 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug 35.4 °C 26 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Aug 36.9 °C 25 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 32.2 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Aug 31.4 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug 32.0 °C 30 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Aug 32.4 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Aug 33.9 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Aug 35.5 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 Aug after 28.1 °C 40 % 36 km/h 2.6 mm Low 10

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.7, a minimum humidity of 33% and 16 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 42.

FWI at the start 39.7
Minimum humidity 33 %
Days without rain 16
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Oravița fire, September 2024
110 ha 2 days FWI 38.7 Min. humidity 31 % 135 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 27.1 mm on 10 Sept.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
208 ha
median area
7 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 34 of 42 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (204 ha against a median of 208 ha) and lasted 11 days, against 2 days.

In 8 of 42, 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 2.0 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

2.6 mmfirst rain
18 Augthe day after it ended
35km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 17 Aug, and on 18 Aug 2.6 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 34 of 42, with a median of 2.0 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 · 31 Jul 2026
After · 24 Aug 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 19 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1039 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
16171819
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 · 16Every 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 Serbia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pecinci Municipality fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (9 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 17 August 2026 (11 days from 7 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 204 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pecinci Municipality (201 ha, 0.4 %); Belgrade (4 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Pecinci Municipality and came within 13.0 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 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Serbia (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: 42. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 208 ha; 7 % went past 1,000 ha. In 8 of 42, 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 2.0 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: 193 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 9 August 2026 → 17 August 2026.
  2. Start date: 9 August 2026 → 7 August 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 193 · 112.

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. 16 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.

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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.