Shkodër fire, 4 August 2024 Shkodër, Pukë
The fire started on 4 August 2024 in Shkodër, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,518 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Shkodër since 2016 (of 82 with a page). Number 8 in Albania in 2024, of 70.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.0 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
- 1,518ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 4 Aug 2024 – 8 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 132
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 517MW
- 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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 18 Aug.
This area had burned before
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 971 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Shkodër where it started1,234 ha reached on 4 Aug0.8 %
-
283 ha reached on 5 Aug0.3 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland53 %
- Broadleaved forest20 %
- Coniferous forest13 %
- Other natural land9.4 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub4.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Aug | 26.5 °C | 34 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Aug | 26.5 °C | 30 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Aug | 28.3 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Aug | 28.7 °C | 30 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 8 Aug | 29.3 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 30 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 10 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 29 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 11 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 25 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 25 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 13 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Aug after | 32.1 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 25 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 17 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 37 |
| 18 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 52 % | 35 km/h | 4.0 mm | Very low 5 |
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 3 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 13 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 · 132Every 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 Shkodër fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 August 2024 and 8 August 2024: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,518 hectares (15.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Shkodër (1,234 ha, 0.8 %); Pukë (283 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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
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.