Burned area
satellite only180ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 26 January 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ME · Montenegro · –
Podgorica Municipality fire, 16 September 2018 Podgorica Municipality
Out · last detection 17 Sept 2018, 10:57 UTC
The fire started on 16 September 2018 in Podgorica Municipality, Montenegro, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 180 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
Number 6 in Montenegro in 2018, of 7.
Use this data
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Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only2days
16 Sept 2018 to 17 Sept 2018: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 17 Sept 2018, 10:57 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only16 Sept 2018
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Sept 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only6
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 37 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 16 Sept 2018 – 17 Sept 2018
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only54MW
Total radiative power on 16 September 2018; hotspots that day: 4.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 16 Sept 2018
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model31.6FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 11.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Sept 2018, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model31.1°C · 19% RH
High of 31.1 °C and minimum humidity of 19% on 16 September 2018; gusts of 32 km/h on 16 September 2018.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Sept 2018 – 17 Sept 2018
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 180 ha
- Dates
- 16 Sept 2018 – 17 Sept 2018
- Name
- Podgorica Municipality
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/podgorica-municipality-2018-09?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire podgorica-municipality-2018-09.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-09-16 | 4 | 54 | 31.1 | 18.8 | 19 | 10.1 | 31.7 | 0 | 31.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-09-17 | 2 | 2 | 30.5 | 15.1 | 22 | 8.7 | 24.8 | 0 | 31 | alto | 1 |
| 2018-09-18 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 15.4 | 28 | 6.8 | 22.7 | 0 | 29.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-09-19 | 0 | 0 | 30.9 | 15.7 | 31 | 7.1 | 24.1 | 0 | 28.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-09-20 | 0 | 0 | 30.9 | 17 | 33 | 7.7 | 21.6 | 0 | 28.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-09-21 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 17.3 | 32 | 8.4 | 27.7 | 0 | 29.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-09-22 | 0 | 0 | 30.4 | 16.5 | 32 | 7.5 | 23.8 | 0 | 28.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-09-23 | 0 | 0 | 29.8 | 17 | 39 | 7 | 23.8 | 0 | 25.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2018-09-24 | 0 | 0 | 24.5 | 13.1 | 62 | 15.1 | 42.8 | 6 | 3.5 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 180ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 16 Sept 2018 – 17 Sept 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Sept
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 37 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 28MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
16 Sept17 Sept
17 Sept 2018
How it evolved, day by day
16 Sept
17 Sept
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
31°high
32km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.0 mm on 24 Sept.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 179 ha in 2016.
What happened to each town
-
Podgorica Municipality where it started180 ha reached on 16 Sept0.1 %
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 woodland99 %
- Broadleaved forest0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Sept | 31.1 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Sept | 30.5 °C | 22 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 18 Sept after | 30.0 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Sept after | 30.0 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Sept after | 30.4 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Sept after | 29.8 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 24 Sept after | 24.5 °C | 62 % | 43 km/h | 6.0 mm | Very low 4 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 31.6, a minimum humidity of 19% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.
FWI at the start
31.6
Minimum humidity
19 %
Days without rain
11
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Podgorica Municipality fire, 16 September 2018
180 ha
2 days
FWI 31.6
Min. humidity 19 %
Nikšić Municipality fire, October 2026
1,243 ha
6 days
FWI 31.8
Min. humidity 19 %
60 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Trebinje fire, August 2017
128 ha
3 days
FWI 33.6
Min. humidity 19 %
78 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.5 mm on 2 Sept.
Bileća fire, July 2022
254 ha
2 days
FWI 33.3
Min. humidity 19 %
107 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.2 mm on 24 Jul.
Bileća fire, August 2017
149 ha
3 days
FWI 31.6
Min. humidity 19 %
95 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.2 mm on 2 Sept.
Bileća fire, August 2021
418 ha
8 days
FWI 32.5
Min. humidity 19 %
98 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 14.2 mm on 25 Aug.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 274 ha
- median area
- 12 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 14 of 17 had it)
It stayed below its twins: 180 ha against a median of 274 ha. It lasted 2 days, against 5 days.
In 3 of 17, 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 2.4 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
6.0 mmfirst rain
24 Sept7 days after it ended
32km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 17 Sept, and on 24 Sept 6.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 17, with a median of 2.4 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Sept 2018
After · 24 Sept 2018
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 6Every 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
- 4,057 haPodgorica Municipality11 August 2025 · 7 days · 4 km away
- 2,739 haPodgorica Municipality11 August 2025 · 4 days · 4 km away
- 2,281 haPodgorica Municipality29 July 2024 · 6 days · 10 km away
- 6,019 haPodgorica Municipality1 August 2017 · 26 days · 13 km away
- 5,687 haDanilovgrad Municipality7 July 2017 · 13 days · 28 km away
- 14,076 haNikšić Municipality17 August 2026 · 26 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Podgorica Municipality fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2018 and 17 September 2018: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 180 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Podgorica Municipality (180 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.
- 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: 17. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 274 ha; 12 % went past 1,000 ha. In 3 of 17, 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 2.4 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: 112 · 123 · 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 6 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.