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Prilep fire, August 2026 Општина Прилеп · Prilep, Novatsi, Mogila

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2026, 12:23 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2026 in Prilep, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 7,752 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). The largest in North Macedonia in 2026, of 40.

Burnt area
7,752ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
17 Aug 2026 – 17 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
17 Aug
2026
Heat detections
167
in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
82MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug17 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

18

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
25km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 214 ha in 2017, 1,511 ha in 2019, 397 ha in 2023, 91 ha in 2024, 1,332 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,495 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 6.8 km from the town where it started
    6,405 ha reached on 18 Aug
    5.3 %
  2. Novatsi Општина Новаци 2,648 inhabitants · 16.3 km from the town
    906 ha reached on 19 Aug
    1.2 %
  3. Mogila Општина Могила 5,283 inhabitants · 18.0 km from the town
    439 ha reached on 20 Aug
    1.7 %

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 areas48 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland36 %
  • Broadleaved forest9.5 %
  • Other natural land6.0 %
  • Mixed forest0.6 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Пожар кај Чаниште · Пожар во прилепско · Čaništa fire

Sources

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 Aug 29.3 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
18 Aug after 29.2 °C 29 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Aug after 28.9 °C 31 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Aug after 31.8 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
21 Aug after 32.5 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Aug after 32.8 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
23 Aug after 31.5 °C 31 % 27 km/h 1.1 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2026
After · 24 Aug 2026

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 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1025 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
151617181920
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 · 167Every 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 August 2026 and 17 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 7,752 hectares (77.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Prilep (6,405 ha, 5.3 %); Novatsi (906 ha, 1.2 %); Mogila (439 ha, 1.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.8 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 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 25 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class 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

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.