Skip to content
worldfires
BG · Bulgaria · →

Simitli fire, September 2025 Симитли · Simitli, Blagoevgrad

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2025, 00:20 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2025 in Simitli, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 119 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 38 in Bulgaria in 2025, of 44.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.6 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
119ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
4 Sept 2025 – 8 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
4 Sept
2025
Heat detections
30
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
150MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

4567

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
35km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Simitli Симитли 12,457 inhabitants · 22.4 km from the town where it started
    95 ha reached on 29 Aug
    0.2 %
  2. Blagoevgrad Благоевград 70,708 inhabitants · 22.7 km from the town
    24 ha reached on 6 Sept
    0.0 %

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 woodland71 %
  • Other natural land26 %
  • Coniferous forest3.3 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

  • ZEPA + LIC Rila BG0000495

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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 Sept 20.1 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
5 Sept 21.4 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
6 Sept 21.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
7 Sept 20.6 °C 27 % 27 km/h 1.0 mm Low 8
8 Sept 19.8 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Low 10
9 Sept after 20.0 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
10 Sept after 21.8 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
11 Sept after 16.6 °C 54 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
12 Sept after 20.1 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
13 Sept after 19.9 °C 39 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
14 Sept after 18.6 °C 49 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm Low 11
15 Sept after 18.2 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
16 Sept after 21.1 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
17 Sept after 12.8 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.7 mm Low 11
18 Sept after 13.6 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2025
After · 15 Sept 2025

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 2 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1050 µg/m³
Optical depth0.35
234567891011
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 · 30Every 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 Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Simitli fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 4 September 2025 and 8 September 2025: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Simitli (95 ha, 0.2 %); Blagoevgrad (24 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 22.4 km of Simitli. 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 21.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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: 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 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 (Public Domain). 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.