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Prilep fire, March 2025 Општина Прилеп · Prilep

Out · last detection 10 Mar 2025, 23:53 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2025 in Prilep, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 224 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 18 in North Macedonia in 2025, of 37.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.5 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
224ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
9 Mar 2025 – 10 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Mar
2025
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
21MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Mar 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar10 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

910

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

The weather it burned in

19°high
30km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 17 Mar.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 46 ha in 2017, 90 ha in 2019, 8 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 100 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 9.4 km from the town where it started
    224 ha reached on 9 Mar
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas39 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland35 %
  • Other natural land25 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.9 %

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)
9 Mar 19.0 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
10 Mar 18.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
11 Mar after 17.6 °C 42 % 56 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 5
12 Mar after 18.0 °C 45 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
13 Mar after 18.3 °C 36 % 56 km/h 0.6 mm Low 7
14 Mar after 20.9 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
15 Mar after 24.1 °C 23 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Mar after 17.6 °C 37 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
17 Mar after 10.2 °C 45 % 56 km/h 2.3 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2025
After · 17 Mar 2025

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 7 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1057 µg/m³
Optical depth0.56
78910111213
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 · 6Every 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 9 March 2025 and 10 March 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 224 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Prilep (224 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.4 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 19.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.
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.