How long did the PODENI fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 September 2026 to 10 October 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 October 2026 to 4 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 778 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: PODENI (517 ha, 6.2 %); BAILE HERCULANE (262 ha, 3.7 %).

Is the PODENI fire still active?

No fire detections since 10 Oct 2026, 00:30 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 24.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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.

RO · Romania · 2026-09-28 → 2026-10-10

PODENI fire, September 2026 PODENI, BAILE HERCULANE

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2026, 00:30 UTC

The fire started on 28 September 2026 in PODENI, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 778 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Mehedinți since 2016 (of 87 with a page). Number 2 in Romania in 2026, of 59.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.6 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: 778ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 13days; 28 Sept 2026 – 10 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 28 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 85; in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start: 27; High · FWI index
Energy released: 199MW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Oct 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Sept10 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

28293012345678910

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

The weather it burned in

24°high

38km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

PODENI where it started

517 ha reached on 1 Oct

6.2 %
BAILE HERCULANE

262 ha reached on 28 Sept

3.7 %

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

Broadleaved forest46 %
Mixed forest28 %
Agricultural areas25 %
Scrub and transitional woodland0.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

ZEPA + LIC Domogled - Valea Cernei ROSAC0069 · ROSPA0035
LIC Platoul Mehedinți ROSAC0198

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
29 Sept	21.2 °C	34 %	30 km/h	High 27
30 Sept	19.9 °C	32 %	38 km/h	High 31
1 Oct	18.9 °C	33 %	33 km/h	High 29
2 Oct	19.3 °C	29 %	19 km/h	High 25
3 Oct	19.0 °C	28 %	18 km/h	High 25
4 Oct	22.1 °C	16 %	21 km/h	High 30
5 Oct	24.2 °C	16 %	19 km/h	High 32
6 Oct	24.2 °C	16 %	18 km/h	High 33

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Sept 2026

After · 17 Oct 2026

Before After

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 2 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1011 µg/m³

Optical depth0.25

2728293012345

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 · 85Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Romania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the PODENI fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 September 2026 to 10 October 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 October 2026 to 4 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 778 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: PODENI (517 ha, 6.2 %); BAILE HERCULANE (262 ha, 3.7 %).
Is the PODENI fire still active?: No fire detections since 10 Oct 2026, 00:30 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 24.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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

IGSU · Inspectoratul General pentru Situații de Urgență ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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 (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.

Where it burned