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.

ME · Montenegro · 2017-08-01 → 2017-08-26

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.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Podgorica Municipality · 2024 Podgorica Municipality · 2025 Podgorica Municipality · 2025 Danilovgrad Municipality · 2017

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

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug26 Aug

Play back 27 Aug 2017

How it evolved, day by day

1 Aug 5 Aug 9 Aug 11 Aug 13 Aug 17 Aug 21 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?

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

Podgorica Municipality where it started

5,473 ha

3.7 %
Danilovgrad Municipality

517 ha

1.0 %
Kolašin Municipality

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

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

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.

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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Last day with fire: 31 August 2017 → 26 August 2017.
27 October 2026 Start date: 31 July 2017 → 1 August 2017.
26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 26 August 2017 → 31 August 2017.
26 October 2026 Start date: 1 August 2017 → 31 July 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned