How long did the Resen fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 31 March 2021 and 31 March 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Resen (100 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Resen and came within 7.7 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 13.5 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very 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.

MK · North Macedonia · 2021-03-31 → 2021-03-31

Resen fire, March 2021 Општина Ресен · Resen

Out · last detection 31 Mar 2021, 11:34 UTC

The fire started on 31 March 2021 in Resen, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 104 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 75th largest in Pelagonia since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 36 in North Macedonia in 2021, of 36.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.2 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: Resen · 2019 Resen · 2019 Resen · 2025 Ohrid · 2024

Burnt area: 104ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 31 Mar 2021 – 31 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 31 Mar; 2021
Heat detections: 6; in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start: 4; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 40MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Mar31 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

31 Mar 2021 · 40 MW · 6

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

The weather it burned in

14°high

51km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 3 Apr.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2018, 18 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 37 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Resen Општина Ресен 14,373 inhabitants · 7.7 km from the centre where it started

100 ha reached on 31 Mar

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

Other natural land94 %
Agricultural areas5.6 %

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)
31 Mar	13.5 °C	34 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
1 Apr after	16.2 °C	33 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
2 Apr after	17.3 °C	42 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
3 Apr after	17.3 °C	44 %	57 km/h	1.5 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 24 Mar 2021

After · 7 Apr 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 1 April 2021 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1025 µg/m³

WHO 15

293031123

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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Resen fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 31 March 2021 and 31 March 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Resen (100 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Resen and came within 7.7 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 13.5 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very 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 · 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.

Report an error

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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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. 6 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