Burned area
satellite only178ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 2 March 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
RO · Romania ·
Sulina fire, 11 February 2019 Sulina
Out · last detection 11 Feb 2019, 00:16 UTC
The fire started on 11 February 2019 in Sulina, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 178 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
This record is fire in the reed beds of the Danube Delta, not a forest fire. Thousands of hectares of reed burn in the delta every year, mostly between January and April, and many of these burns are deliberate. That is why it is left out of the fire rankings.
The power measured by the satellite is low (3.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only1day
11 Feb 2019 to 11 Feb 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 11 Feb 2019, 00:16 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only11 Feb 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Feb 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only4
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 3 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 11 Feb 2019 – 11 Feb 2019
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only9MW
Total radiative power on 11 February 2019; hotspots that day: 4.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 11 Feb 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model3.4FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 9.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 11 Feb 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model8.9°C · 75% RH
High of 8.9 °C and minimum humidity of 75% on 11 February 2019; gusts of 54 km/h on 11 February 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 11 Feb 2019 – 11 Feb 2019
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 178 ha
- Dates
- 11 Feb 2019 – 11 Feb 2019
- Name
- Sulina
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/sulina-2019-02-2?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire sulina-2019-02-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-02-11 | 4 | 9 | 8.9 | 1.9 | 75 | 30.7 | 54.4 | 0 | 3.4 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2019-02-12 | 0 | 0 | 7.2 | 3.2 | 83 | 22.1 | 36.7 | 1.2 | 0.4 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 178ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 11 Feb 2019 – 11 Feb 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 11 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 4
- in a single hotspot: 3 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 9MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
11 Feb11 Feb
How it evolved, day by day
11 Feb 2019 · 9 MW · 4
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
9°high
54km/h · peak gust
75%lowest humidity
It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 12 Feb.
This area had burned before
30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 46 ha in 2016, 7 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
178 ha reached on 11 Feb0.5 %
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
- Other natural land100 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Delta Dunării ROSCI0065
- ZEPA Delta Dunării și Complexul Razim - Sinoie ROSPA0031
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)
Started with Strong wind: 5.0 % of the area in Romania
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Feb | 8.9 °C | 75 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 12 Feb after | 7.2 °C | 83 % | 37 km/h | 1.2 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 3.4, a minimum humidity of 75% and 9 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 1.
FWI at the start
3.4
Minimum humidity
75 %
Days without rain
9
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Sulina fire, 11 February 2019
178 ha
1 day
FWI 3.4
Min. humidity 75 %
Holo Prystan fire, June 2026
582 ha
1 day
FWI 9.8
Min. humidity 73 %
214 km away, in 2026
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 1. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
1.2 mmfirst rain
12 Febthe day after it ended
54km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 11 Feb, and on 12 Feb 1.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2019.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 4 Feb 2019
After · 18 Feb 2019
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 12 February 2019 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1047 µg/m³
WHO 15
9 Feb11 Feb13 Feb15 Feb17 Feb
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 · 4Every 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
- 7,618 haSulina14 February 2025 · 7 days · 8 km away
- 7,692 haSulina20 March 2022 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 6,252 haKiliia Кілійський район24 March 2022 · 9 days · 21 km away
- 6,700 haChilia Veche31 March 2022 · 4 days · 25 km away
- 10,843 haSfântu GheorgheJanuary 2025 · 5 days · 26 km away
- 9,392 haSfântu Gheorghe18 March 2022 · 5 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sulina fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 11 February 2019 and 11 February 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 178 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sulina (178 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Sulina and came within 1.7 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 8.9 °C, humidity dropped to 75 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, class Very low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Romania (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 With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4 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.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.