How long did the Shtip fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 29 August 2024 and 31 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 276 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Shtip (277 ha, 0.5 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.4 km of Shtip. 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 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very 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 · 2024-08-29 → 2024-08-31

Shtip fire, August 2024 Општина Штип · Shtip

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2024, 12:38 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2024 in Shtip, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 276 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in East since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 30 in North Macedonia in 2024, of 69.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.5 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: 276ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 29 Aug 2024 – 31 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 29 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 13; in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 47MW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Sept 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

291

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

44km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.9 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Shtip Општина Штип 44,866 inhabitants · 11.4 km from the town where it started

277 ha reached on 29 Aug

0.5 %

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 woodland74 %
Broadleaved forest25 %
Other natural land1.4 %

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)
29 Aug	33.5 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
30 Aug	29.4 °C	37 %	35 km/h	2.6 mm	Moderate 13
31 Aug	29.6 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.7 mm	High 27
1 Sept after	33.6 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Sept after	34.8 °C	12 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Sept after	34.6 °C	12 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Sept after	34.0 °C	17 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
5 Sept after	34.0 °C	19 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
6 Sept after	32.8 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.6 mm	High 32
7 Sept after	33.1 °C	27 %	22 km/h	0.5 mm	Very high 39
8 Sept after	32.4 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
9 Sept after	28.9 °C	43 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Sept after	21.3 °C	64 %	30 km/h	13.9 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Aug 2024

After · 7 Sept 2024

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 31 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1029 µg/m³

Optical depth0.37

WHO 15

2728293031123

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 · 13Every 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 Shtip fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 29 August 2024 and 31 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 276 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Shtip (277 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.4 km of Shtip. 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 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

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