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Studenichani fire, August 2019 Општина Студеничани · Studenichani

Out · last detection 31 Aug 2019, 00:49 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2019 in Studenichani, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 107 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 29th largest in Skopje since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 73 in North Macedonia in 2019, of 77.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.8 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
107ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
30 Aug 2019 – 31 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2019
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
18MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3031

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
35km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.9 mm on 7 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Studenichani Општина Студеничани 21,970 inhabitants · 10.0 km from the town where it started
    107 ha reached on 30 Aug
    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

  • Agricultural areas68 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland26 %
  • Broadleaved forest6.4 %

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)
30 Aug 31.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
31 Aug 30.9 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
1 Sept after 31.0 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Sept after 31.4 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 Sept after 30.1 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Sept after 26.5 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Sept after 29.1 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Sept after 29.0 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Sept after 25.3 °C 56 % 27 km/h 9.9 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2019
After · 7 Sept 2019

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 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1041 µg/m³
28293031123
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 · 3Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Studenichani fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 August 2019 and 31 August 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 107 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Studenichani (107 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.0 km of Studenichani. 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 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

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 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.