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Strumyarni fire, July 2025 Струмяни · Strumyarni, Kresna, Sandanski

Out · last detection 30 Jul 2025, 12:14 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2025 in Strumyarni, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,261 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 2 in Bulgaria in 2025, of 44.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Strumyarni · 2024Simitli · 2017Pehchevo · 2024Berovo · 2020

Burnt area
3,261ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
25 Jul 2025 – 30 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
25 Jul
2025
Heat detections
252
in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
469MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul30 Jul
30 Jul 2025

How it evolved, day by day

26 Jul 2025 · 50 MW · 7 27 Jul 2025 · 952 MW · 84 28 Jul 2025 · 290 MW · 39 29 Jul 2025 · 400 MW · 40 30 Jul 2025 · 653 MW · 82
26 Jul 27 Jul 28 Jul 29 Jul 30 Jul

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
37km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.1 mm on 31 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (33 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Strumyarni Струмяни 4,378 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre where it started
    1,398 ha reached on 26 Jul
    3.6 %
  2. Kresna Кресна 4,201 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the centre
    1,228 ha reached on 27 Jul
    3.6 %
  3. Sandanski Сандански 34,243 inhabitants · 6.9 km from the centre
    639 ha reached on 29 Jul
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Mixed forest44 %
  • Coniferous forest24 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland14 %
  • Agricultural areas11 %
  • Other natural land5.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 57 %

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)
25 Jul 33.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jul 32.4 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jul 30.7 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul 28.2 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jul 27.1 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jul 26.0 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Jul after 19.8 °C 60 % 24 km/h 7.1 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jul 2025
After · 6 Aug 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 29 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak57 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1092 µg/m³
Optical depth0.88
232425262728293031
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 · 252Every 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 Strumyarni fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 July 2025 to 30 July 2025 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 July 2025 to 28 July 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,261 hectares (32.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Strumyarni (1,398 ha, 3.6 %); Kresna (1,228 ha, 3.6 %); Sandanski (639 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Strumyarni and came within 1.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class High.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 July 2025 to 28 July 2025. 252 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.