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Prilep fire, October 2026 Општина Прилеп · Dolneni, Prilep, Krivogashtani

Out · last detection 10 Oct 2026, 11:10 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 2 October 2026 in Prilep, North Macedonia. It has been active for 10 days, with 21 heat detections and an area with fire of about 266 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 4 municipalities.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Area with fire
≈ 266ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
10days
2 Oct 2026 – 11 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
2 Oct
2026
Heat detections
21
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
104MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct11 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

234567810

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
33km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

What happened to each town

  1. Dolneni Општина Долнени 13,126 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    196 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.5 %
  2. Prilep Општина Прилеп 69,025 inhabitants · 17.5 km from the town where it started
    42 ha reached on 2 Oct
    0.0 %
  3. Krivogashtani Општина Кривогаштани 5,167 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the town
    14 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.2 %
  4. Krushevo Општина Крушево 8,385 inhabitants · 21.8 km from the town
    14 ha reached on 3 Oct
    0.1 %

Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
3 Oct 18.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
4 Oct 19.7 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
5 Oct 20.9 °C 20 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
6 Oct 21.9 °C 19 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
7 Oct 22.2 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
8 Oct 22.6 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Oct 22.2 °C 54 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
10 Oct 23.5 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.5 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Sept 2026
After · 18 Oct 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 7 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1031 µg/m³
Optical depth0.27
12345678910
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 · 21Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 2 October 2026 to 11 October 2026 (10 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 266 hectares with fire (2.7 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Dolneni (196 ha, 0.5 %); Prilep (42 ha, 0.0 %); Krivogashtani (14 ha, 0.2 %); Krushevo (14 ha, 0.1 %).
Is the Prilep fire still active?
No fire detections since 10 Oct 2026, 11:10 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Dolneni. 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 22.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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.