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Roman fire, 17 September 2019 Роман · Roman

Out · last detection 18 Sept 2019, 00:11 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2019 in Roman, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 789 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Vratsa since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 4 in Bulgaria in 2019, of 42.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.4 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
789ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
17 Sept 2019 – 18 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Sept
2019
Heat detections
29
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
156MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept18 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1718

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
53km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 23 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Roman Роман 4,632 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the town where it started
    789 ha reached on 16 Sept
    2.5 %

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 areas53 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland46 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 67 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
16 Sept 28.6 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Sept 30.4 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Sept 25.5 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Sept after 21.1 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
20 Sept after 18.6 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 33
21 Sept after 19.3 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Sept after 23.4 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Sept after 23.7 °C 37 % 27 km/h 1.9 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2019
After · 25 Sept 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 15 September 2019 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1032 µg/m³
1415161718192021
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 · 29Every 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 17 September 2019 and 18 September 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 789 hectares (7.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Roman (789 ha, 2.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.7 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 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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.