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Prilep fire, September 2021 Општина Прилеп · Prilep

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

The fire started on 17 September 2021 in Prilep, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 211 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 21 in North Macedonia in 2021, of 36.

The power measured by the satellite is low (2.7 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: Kavadartsi · 2017Mariovo · 2024Gradsko · 2024Prilep · 2026

Burnt area
211ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
17 Sept 2021 – 18 Sept 2021
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2021
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
6MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept18 Sept
18 Sept 2021

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2021 · 3 MW · 3 18 Sept 2021 · 8 MW · 5
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

30°high
63km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 51 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 11.5 km from the centre where it started
    211 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.2 %

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 woodland79 %
  • Broadleaved forest21 %

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 30.3 °C 27 % 54 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
18 Sept 25.7 °C 42 % 63 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
19 Sept after 27.8 °C 32 % 62 km/h 0.8 mm High 25
20 Sept after 29.3 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Sept after 24.0 °C 35 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
22 Sept after 16.9 °C 48 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Sept after 17.5 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Sept after 24.2 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Sept after 27.5 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Sept after 30.0 °C 11 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Sept after 30.9 °C 11 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Sept after 24.6 °C 43 % 23 km/h 5.8 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2021
After · 25 Sept 2021

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 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1039 µg/m³
15161718192021
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 · 8Every 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 2021 and 18 September 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 211 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Prilep (211 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Prilep and came within 11.5 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 30.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very high.
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 ›

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 8 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.