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Presevo Municipality fire, September 2018 Прешево · Presevo Municipality, Bujanovac Municipality

Out · last detection 1 Oct 2018, 11:35 UTC

The fire started on 29 September 2018 in Presevo Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 203 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in Pčinjski upravni okrug since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 7 in Serbia in 2018, of 17.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.8 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: Staro Nagorichane · 2024Bujanovac Municipality · 2019Bujanovac Municipality · 2026Bujanovac Municipality · 2019

Burnt area
203ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
29 Sept 2018 – 2 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
29 Sept
2018
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
29MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Sept2 Oct
1 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

29 Sept 2018 · 73 MW · 8 30 Sept 2018 · 6 MW · 1 1 Oct 2018 · 9 MW · 2
29 Sept 30 Sept 1 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

22°high
48km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 8 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Presevo Municipality Прешево 33,449 inhabitants · 10.9 km from the centre where it started
    193 ha reached on 29 Sept
    0.7 %
  2. Bujanovac Municipality Бујановац 41,068 inhabitants · 11.5 km from the centre
    10 ha reached on 29 Sept
    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 woodland36 %
  • Broadleaved forest24 %
  • Other natural land22 %
  • Agricultural areas19 %

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)
29 Sept 20.9 °C 21 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Sept 21.4 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Oct 22.5 °C 36 % 21 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
2 Oct 23.3 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Oct after 20.7 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Oct after 20.6 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
5 Oct after 21.9 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Oct after 22.6 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Oct after 23.6 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
8 Oct after 24.4 °C 42 % 26 km/h 3.1 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Sept 2018
After · 9 Oct 2018

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 2018 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1032 µg/m³
272829301234
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 · 11Every 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 Serbia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Presevo Municipality fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 September 2018 to 2 October 2018 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 September 2018 to 1 October 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 203 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Presevo Municipality (193 ha, 0.7 %); Bujanovac Municipality (10 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Presevo Municipality and came within 10.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Serbia (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: 193 · 112 · 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

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 193 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 September 2018 to 1 October 2018. 11 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 (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.