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ME · Montenegro · –

Podgorica Municipality fire, 1 August 2017 Podgorica Municipality, Danilovgrad Municipality, Kolašin Municipality

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2017, 23:52 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2017 in Podgorica Municipality, Montenegro, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,019 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

The largest in Montenegro in 2017, of 75.

Burnt area
6,019ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
26days
1 Aug 2017 – 26 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
1 Aug
2017
Heat detections
854
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
192MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug26 Aug
27 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 2017 · 39 MW · 7 2 Aug 2017 · 216 MW · 14 3 Aug 2017 · 12 MW · 5 4 Aug 2017 · 66 MW · 10 5 Aug 2017 · 60 MW · 14 6 Aug 2017 · 119 MW · 28 7 Aug 2017 · 77 MW · 19 8 Aug 2017 · 41 MW · 10 9 Aug 2017 · 195 MW · 24 10 Aug 2017 · 367 MW · 38 11 Aug 2017 · 585 MW · 87 12 Aug 2017 · 126 MW · 24 13 Aug 2017 · 44 MW · 8 14 Aug 2017 · 250 MW · 25 15 Aug 2017 · 379 MW · 53 16 Aug 2017 · 203 MW · 45 17 Aug 2017 · 243 MW · 29 18 Aug 2017 · 492 MW · 55 19 Aug 2017 · 574 MW · 76 20 Aug 2017 · 108 MW · 37 21 Aug 2017 · 109 MW · 35 22 Aug 2017 · 76 MW · 24 23 Aug 2017 · 74 MW · 22 24 Aug 2017 · 147 MW · 26 25 Aug 2017 · 120 MW · 26 26 Aug 2017 · 218 MW · 35 27 Aug 2017 · 244 MW · 78
1 Aug 11 Aug 19 Aug 25 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

32°high
43km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 29 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Podgorica Municipality where it started
    5,473 ha
    3.7 %
  2. 517 ha
    1.0 %
  3. 47 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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland39 %
  • Broadleaved forest36 %
  • Other natural land22 %
  • Mixed forest1.8 %
  • Coniferous forest0.6 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.

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)
1 Aug 30.6 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
2 Aug 31.0 °C 33 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
3 Aug 30.0 °C 35 % 25 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 11
4 Aug 30.7 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
5 Aug 30.8 °C 43 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
6 Aug 31.1 °C 36 % 27 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 12
7 Aug 28.9 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
8 Aug 29.2 °C 39 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
9 Aug 31.4 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Aug 31.5 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
11 Aug 29.5 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Aug 24.8 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
13 Aug 20.0 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
14 Aug 24.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
15 Aug 25.5 °C 38 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Aug 27.8 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Aug 27.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
18 Aug 28.7 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Aug 27.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Aug 25.2 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Aug 20.7 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
22 Aug 21.5 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Aug 23.2 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Aug 26.0 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
25 Aug 28.6 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug 29.1 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Aug after 28.9 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Aug after 27.8 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Aug after 22.8 °C 39 % 42 km/h 2.8 mm Low 7

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 13.3, a minimum humidity of 35% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 9.

FWI at the start 13.3
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Malësi e Madhe fire, August 2020
184 ha 3 days FWI 18.1 Min. humidity 32 % 29 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 17.2 mm on 5 Aug.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 9. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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

2.8 mmfirst rain
29 Aug3 days after it ended
43km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 26 Aug, and on 29 Aug 2.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.

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 2017.
  • 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 · 25 Jul 2017
After · 2 Sept 2017

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 0Every 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 Montenegro

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Podgorica Municipality fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 August 2017 and 26 August 2017: 26 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,019 hectares (60.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Podgorica Municipality (5,473 ha, 3.7 %); Danilovgrad Municipality (517 ha, 1.0 %); Kolašin Municipality (47 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Montenegro (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 · 123 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 31 August 2017 → 26 August 2017.
  2. Start date: 31 July 2017 → 1 August 2017.
  3. Last day with fire: 26 August 2017 → 31 August 2017.
  4. Start date: 1 August 2017 → 31 July 2017.

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 112 · 123.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2015, 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 ADM1 (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.