How long did the Saraj fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 28 July 2021 and 31 July 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 652 hectares (6.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Saraj (653 ha, 2.8 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.7 km of Saraj. 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 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class High.

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 · 2021-07-28 → 2021-07-31

Saraj fire, July 2021 Општина Сарај · Saraj

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2021, 00:24 UTC

The fire started on 28 July 2021 in Saraj, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 652 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Skopje since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 6 in North Macedonia in 2021, of 36.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.5 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: 652ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 28 Jul 2021 – 31 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 28 Jul; 2021
Heat detections: 17; in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start: 22; High · FWI index
Energy released: 30MW; sum of detected power

Play back 31 Jul 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

293031

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

39km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 6 Aug.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 361 ha in 2017.

361 ha Saraj fire, July 2017 1,813 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Saraj Општина Сарај 38,399 inhabitants · 11.7 km from the town where it started

653 ha reached on 29 Jul

2.8 %

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

Sclerophyllous scrub52 %
Other natural land39 %
Scrub and transitional woodland6.4 %
Broadleaved forest2.8 %

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)
28 Jul	33.3 °C	25 %	39 km/h	0.4 mm	High 22
29 Jul	34.5 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
30 Jul	34.7 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
31 Jul	34.1 °C	12 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
1 Aug after	35.4 °C	15 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
2 Aug after	33.8 °C	10 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Aug after	31.1 °C	18 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Aug after	32.9 °C	19 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Aug after	33.2 °C	14 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
6 Aug after	25.3 °C	34 %	34 km/h	2.5 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Jul 2021

After · 7 Aug 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 29 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1042 µg/m³

WHO 15

262728293031123

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 · 17Every 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 Saraj fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 28 July 2021 and 31 July 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 652 hectares (6.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Saraj (653 ha, 2.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.7 km of Saraj. 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 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class High.
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

Центар за управување со кризи ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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