SAPANTA fire, April 2026 SAPANTA
The fire started on 25 April 2026 in SAPANTA, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 162 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Maramureș since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 38 in Romania in 2026, of 59.
The power measured by the satellite is low (4.9 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
- 162ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 25 Apr 2026 – 25 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 5 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 20MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 146 ha in 2019, 160 ha in 2020, 119 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 162 ha that had burned before.
- 160 ha SAPANTA fire, April 2020 1,342 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 146 ha SAPANTA fire, April 2019 280 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 119 ha SAPANTA fire, March 2024 327 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
162 ha reached on 26 Apr1.2 %
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
- Other natural land93 %
- Broadleaved forest5.6 %
- Mixed forest1.2 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Apr | 17.0 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 26 Apr after | 10.8 °C | 28 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 27 Apr after | 10.9 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 28 Apr after | 13.1 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 29 Apr after | 10.8 °C | 25 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 30 Apr after | 9.3 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 May after | 11.9 °C | 31 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Low 10 |
| 2 May after | 14.5 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 3 May after | 17.2 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 4 May after | 21.2 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 5 May after | 24.3 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 25 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the SAPANTA fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 April 2026 and 25 April 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 162 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered SAPANTA (162 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.9 km of SAPANTA. 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 17.0 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (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
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.