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RS · Serbia ·

Presevo Municipality fire, October 2019 Прешево · Presevo Municipality

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2019, 12:00 UTC

The fire started on 24 October 2019 in Presevo Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 100 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 80th largest in Pčinjski upravni okrug since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 38 in Serbia in 2019, of 38.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
100ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
24 Oct 2019 – 24 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Oct
2019
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
7MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Oct24 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

24 Oct 2019 · 7 MW · 2

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
24km/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: 1.7 mm on 31 Oct.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Presevo Municipality Прешево 33,449 inhabitants · 8.6 km from the centre where it started
    100 ha reached on 24 Oct
    0.4 %

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

  • Other natural land99 %
  • Agricultural areas1.0 %

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)
24 Oct 24.8 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Oct after 24.6 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
26 Oct after 23.8 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
27 Oct after 23.8 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Oct after 23.7 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Oct after 22.0 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
30 Oct after 18.0 °C 50 % 23 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 18
31 Oct after 10.1 °C 77 % 26 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 23.3, a minimum humidity of 21% and 20 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 36.

FWI at the start 23.3
Minimum humidity 21 %
Days without rain 20
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Kriva Palanka fire, September 2017
300 ha 5 days FWI 25.0 Min. humidity 21 % 40 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.9 mm on 25 Sept.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
221 ha
median area
8 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 33 of 36 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 100 ha against a median of 221 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 5 days.

In 3 of 36, 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 2.7 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

1.7 mmfirst rain
31 Oct7 days after it ended
24km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 24 Oct, and on 31 Oct 1.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 33 of 36, with a median of 2.7 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Oct 2019
After · 31 Oct 2019

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 27 October 2019 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1085 µg/m³
22 Oct24 Oct26 Oct
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 · 2Every 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?
Copernicus dates it between 24 October 2019 and 24 October 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 100 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Presevo Municipality (100 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Presevo Municipality and came within 8.6 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 24.8 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class 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.
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: 36. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 221 ha; 8 % went past 1,000 ha. In 3 of 36, 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 2.7 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: 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.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2 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.