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Shkodër fire, 22 March 2022 Shkodër

Out · last detection 26 Mar 2022, 10:45 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2022 in Shkodër, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 220 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Shkodër since 2016 (of 82 with a page). Number 21 in Albania in 2022, of 50.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.8 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
220ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
22 Mar 2022 – 25 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Mar
2022
Heat detections
22
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
90MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar25 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526

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

The weather it burned in

18°high
54km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.9 mm on 30 Mar.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Shkodër where it started
    220 ha reached on 22 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

  • Broadleaved forest93 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland7.3 %

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)
22 Mar 12.8 °C 27 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
23 Mar 13.7 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
24 Mar 17.5 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
25 Mar 16.5 °C 38 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
26 Mar after 17.8 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
27 Mar after 18.1 °C 21 % 15 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
28 Mar after 12.9 °C 44 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
29 Mar after 13.2 °C 54 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
30 Mar after 12.4 °C 55 % 48 km/h 7.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2022
After · 1 Apr 2022

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 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1048 µg/m³
2021222324252627282930
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 · 22Every 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 22 March 2022 and 25 March 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 220 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Shkodër (220 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 17.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 54 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 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.