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Shkodër fire, 5 September 2026 Shkodër

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2026, 11:53 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2026 in Shkodër, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 587 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Shkodër since 2016 (of 82 with a page). Number 9 in Albania in 2026, of 43.

Burnt area
587ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
5 Sept 2026 – 10 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
5 Sept
2026
Heat detections
69
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
853MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

5678910

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
28km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 12 Sept.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 423 ha in 2017, 7 ha in 2020, 32 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 430 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Shkodër where it started
    587 ha reached on 5 Sept
    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 land51 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland29 %
  • Agricultural areas10 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub10 %

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)
5 Sept 32.2 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept 31.6 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Sept 31.9 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Sept 31.4 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Sept 29.5 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Sept 31.0 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Sept after 30.1 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept after 26.4 °C 45 % 34 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2026
After · 17 Sept 2026

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 8 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1049 µg/m³
Optical depth0.79
345678
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 · 69Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 September 2026 to 10 September 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2026 to 5 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 587 hectares (5.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Shkodër (587 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.