How long did the Prilep fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 August 2021 to 10 August 2021 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 August 2021 to 7 August 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,519 hectares (15.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Prilep (1,523 ha, 1.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Prilep and came within 10.5 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 84 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.

MK · North Macedonia · 2021-08-02 → 2021-08-10

Prilep fire, August 2021 Општина Прилеп · Prilep

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2021, 12:00 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2021 in Prilep, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,519 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 3 in North Macedonia in 2021, of 36.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Prilep · 2019 Prilep · 2017 Gradsko · 2024 Chashka · 2024

Burnt area: 1,519ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 9days; 2 Aug 2021 – 10 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 2 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 36; in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start: 55; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 63MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug10 Aug

Play back 10 Aug 2021

How it evolved, day by day

2 Aug 3 Aug 5 Aug 9 Aug 10 Aug

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

84km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 11 Aug.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 34 ha in 2017, 69 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1% of the area of London (15 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 10.5 km from the centre where it started

1,523 ha reached on 2 Aug

1.3 %

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 woodland43 %
Other natural land21 %
Agricultural areas18 %
Broadleaved forest18 %

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)
2 Aug	34.2 °C	18 %	66 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
3 Aug	32.8 °C	18 %	62 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
4 Aug	32.7 °C	22 %	56 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
5 Aug	35.2 °C	12 %	84 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
6 Aug	26.4 °C	31 %	47 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 13
7 Aug	27.5 °C	21 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
8 Aug	31.7 °C	20 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Aug	32.9 °C	21 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Aug	33.5 °C	21 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
11 Aug after	32.4 °C	22 %	51 km/h	1.2 mm	High 23

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Jul 2021

After · 17 Aug 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 5 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1061 µg/m³

WHO 15

3112345678910

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 · 36Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Prilep fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 August 2021 to 10 August 2021 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 August 2021 to 7 August 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,519 hectares (15.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Prilep (1,523 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Prilep and came within 10.5 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 84 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Центар за управување со кризи ↗

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 193 · 112.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 August 2021 to 7 August 2021. 36 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 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.

Where it burned