Petrovets fire, August 2024 Општина Петровец · Petrovets
The fire started on 6 August 2024 in Petrovets, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 486 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 9th largest in Skopje since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 23 in North Macedonia in 2024, of 69.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 486ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 6 Aug 2024 – 8 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 6 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 29
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 93MW
- 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 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 18 Aug.
This area had burned before
44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 142 ha in 2017, 196 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 215 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
486 ha reached on 6 Aug2.4 %
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 woodland36 %
- Agricultural areas30 %
- Other natural land21 %
- Broadleaved forest12 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Aug | 33.2 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Aug | 34.5 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 8 Aug | 38.0 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Aug after | 35.5 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Aug after | 34.4 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Aug after | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Aug after | 39.0 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Aug after | 40.4 °C | 15 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Aug after | 40.8 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Aug after | 40.4 °C | 16 % | 21 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Aug after | 40.4 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Aug after | 39.6 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Aug after | 35.3 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 4.1 mm | Low 11 |
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 6 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 9 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 · 29Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,051 haSveti Nikole Општина Свети Николе28 July 2024 · 5 days · 24 km away
- 1,723 haKumanovo Општина КумановоAugust 2021 · 4 days · 25 km away
- 2,363 haStaro Nagorichane Општина Старо НагоричанеJuly 2025 · 2 days · 30 km away
- 2,674 haKarbintsi Општина КарбинциJuly 2024 · 3 days · 39 km away
- 2,056 haMakedonski Brod Општина Македонски Брод1 September 2026 · 25 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Petrovets fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 6 August 2024 and 8 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 486 hectares (4.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Petrovets (486 ha, 2.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Petrovets and came within 8.5 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 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of North Macedonia (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: 193 · 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 29 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 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.