How long did the Struga fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 1 July 2017 and 1 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 153 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Struga (153 ha, 0.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.3 km of Struga. 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 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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 · 2017-07-01 → 2017-07-01

Struga fire, July 2017 Општина Струга · Struga

Out · last detection 1 Jul 2017, 12:43 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2017 in Struga, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 153 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 42th largest in Southwest since 2016 (of 61 with a page). Number 36 in North Macedonia in 2017, of 44.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.6 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: 153ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 1 Jul 2017 – 1 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 1 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 11; in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 62MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul1 Jul

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

34°high

44km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 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

Struga Општина Струга 50,980 inhabitants · 8.3 km from the town where it started

153 ha reached on 29 Jun

0.3 %

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

Coniferous forest35 %
Mixed forest25 %
Agricultural areas14 %
Scrub and transitional woodland13 %
Broadleaved forest13 %

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)
1 Jul	33.6 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
2 Jul after	31.1 °C	38 %	39 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23
3 Jul after	22.5 °C	46 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
4 Jul after	25.9 °C	31 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
5 Jul after	28.2 °C	30 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
6 Jul after	30.6 °C	25 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
7 Jul after	30.4 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
8 Jul after	31.5 °C	29 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
9 Jul after	31.5 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
10 Jul after	33.4 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.3 mm	High 26
11 Jul after	33.2 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 24 Jun 2017

After · 8 Jul 2017

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 30 June 2017 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1036 µg/m³

WHO 15

29301234

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 · 11Every 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 Struga fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 1 July 2017 and 1 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 153 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Struga (153 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.3 km of Struga. 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 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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