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Roman fire, March 2019 Роман · Roman

Out · last measured on 5 Mar 2019

The fire started on 5 March 2019 in Roman, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 110 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Vratsa since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 36 in Bulgaria in 2019, of 42.

Burnt area
110ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
5 Mar 2019 – 5 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Mar
2019
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Mar5 Mar

The weather it burned in

17°high
37km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 6 Mar.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Roman Роман 4,632 inhabitants · 9.8 km from the town where it started
    110 ha reached on 8 Mar
    0.3 %

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 areas67 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.6 %

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)
5 Mar 16.7 °C 37 % 37 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 1
6 Mar after 15.9 °C 32 % 46 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Feb 2019
After · 12 Mar 2019

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 5 March 2019 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1032 µg/m³
345678
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 · 1Every 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 Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Roman fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 March 2019 and 5 March 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 110 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roman (110 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.8 km of Roman. 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 16.7 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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: 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 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 (Public Domain). 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.