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Sanski Most fire, March 2025 Sanski Most

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2025, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 7 March 2025 in Sanski Most, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 158 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 372th largest in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 520 with a page). Number 44 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2025, of 65.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.7 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
158ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
7 Mar 2025 – 8 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Mar
2025
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
5
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
43MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Mar 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Mar8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

789

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

The weather it burned in

20°high
19km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.3 mm on 11 Mar.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 87 ha in 2020, 100 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 107 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sanski Most where it started
    158 ha reached on 7 Mar
    0.2 %

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 areas80 %
  • Broadleaved forest20 %

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)
7 Mar 20.4 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
8 Mar 18.8 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
9 Mar after 20.1 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
10 Mar after 17.5 °C 49 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
11 Mar after 16.7 °C 52 % 43 km/h 13.3 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Feb 2025
After · 15 Mar 2025

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 8 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 31: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak45 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1053 µg/m³
Optical depth0.38
567891011
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 · 10Every 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 Bosnia & Herzegovina ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sanski Most fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 March 2025 and 8 March 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 158 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sanski Most (158 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.4 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class Low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bosnia & Herzegovina (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: 123 · 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 123 · 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 ADM3 (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.