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Prilep fire, September 2017 Општина Прилеп · Prilep

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2017, 01:02 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2017 in Prilep, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 657 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 7 in North Macedonia in 2017, of 44.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.0 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
657ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
17 Sept 2017 – 20 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2017
Heat detections
39
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
210MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

17181920

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
46km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.2 mm on 25 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 6.9 km from the town where it started
    658 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Scrub and transitional woodland52 %
  • Other natural land22 %
  • Broadleaved forest22 %
  • Agricultural areas3.8 %

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)
17 Sept 34.8 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Sept 32.4 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Sept 30.6 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 51
20 Sept 23.0 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Sept after 19.4 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
22 Sept after 18.3 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Sept after 21.9 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Sept after 24.0 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.8 mm High 25
25 Sept after 15.8 °C 71 % 34 km/h 10.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2017
After · 27 Sept 2017

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 2017 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
151617181920212223
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 · 39Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Prilep fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 September 2017 and 20 September 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 657 hectares (6.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Prilep (658 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.9 km of Prilep. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of North Macedonia (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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.