How long did the Pogradec fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 September 2021 to 18 September 2021 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 September 2021 to 14 September 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 193 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Pogradec (193 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 22.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

AL · Albania · 2021-09-13 → 2021-09-18

Pogradec fire, September 2021 Pogradec

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2021, 01:46 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2021 in Pogradec, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 193 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Korçë since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 23 in Albania in 2021, of 51.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Gramsh · 2025 Kuçovë · 2024 Ohrid · 2024 Gramsh · 2025

Burnt area: 193ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 13 Sept 2021 – 18 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 13 Sept; 2021
Heat detections: 31; in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start: 14; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 17MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept18 Sept

Play back 18 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

13 Sept 14 Sept 15 Sept 16 Sept 17 Sept 18 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

23°high

35km/h · peak gust

23%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 25.2 mm on 18 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Pogradec where it started

193 ha reached on 13 Sept

0.3 %

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 woodland85 %
Broadleaved forest15 %

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)
13 Sept	21.4 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
14 Sept	22.7 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
15 Sept	23.4 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 18
16 Sept	22.5 °C	33 %	45 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 20
17 Sept	23.1 °C	34 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
18 Sept	18.4 °C	67 %	73 km/h	25.2 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Sept 2021

After · 25 Sept 2021

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 17 September 2021 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1040 µg/m³

WHO 15

1112131415161718192021

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 · 31Every 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 Albania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pogradec fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 September 2021 to 18 September 2021 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 September 2021 to 14 September 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 193 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Pogradec (193 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 22.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (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: 128 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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 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?

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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 128 · 112.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 September 2021 to 14 September 2021. 31 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.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic). 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