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Shkodër fire, 30 August 2017 Shkodër

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2017, 23:59 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2017 in Shkodër, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 595 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Shkodër since 2016 (of 82 with a page). Number 17 in Albania in 2017, of 83.

Burnt area
595ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
30 Aug 2017 – 2 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2017
Heat detections
34
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
280MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

311

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
36km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.8 mm on 3 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. Shkodër where it started
    582 ha reached on 31 Aug
    0.4 %

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 land96 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub3.7 %

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)
30 Aug 29.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
31 Aug 27.4 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
1 Sept 28.3 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
2 Sept 29.1 °C 37 % 30 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 17
3 Sept after 21.3 °C 63 % 41 km/h 14.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2017
After · 9 Sept 2017

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 1 September 2017 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1025 µg/m³
2829303112345
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 · 34Every 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 Albania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Shkodër fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 August 2017 and 2 September 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 595 hectares (6.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Shkodër (582 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (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: 128 · 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 128 · 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 2.5 Generic). 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.