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RO · Romania ·

Sulina fire, 15 January 2022 Sulina, C.A. Rosetti

Out · last measured on 15 Jan 2022

The fire started on 15 January 2022 in Sulina, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 244 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

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.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Izmali · 2026Reni · 2026Sulina · 2017C.A. Rosetti · 2019

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
244ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
15 Jan 2022 – 15 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
15 Jan
2022
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

5°high
56km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 18 Jan.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 243 ha in 2017, 220 ha in 2019, 90 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 244 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sulina 3,118 inhabitants · 7.4 km from the centre where it started
    244 ha
    0.8 %
  2. C.A. Rosetti 636 inhabitants · 6.8 km from the centre
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 %

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)
15 Jan 5.0 °C 48 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
16 Jan after 3.5 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
17 Jan after 6.3 °C 49 % 41 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 1
18 Jan after 2.9 °C 43 % 74 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 3

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 2.5, a minimum humidity of 48% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 19.

FWI at the start 2.5
Minimum humidity 48 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Izmali fire, March 2026
169 ha 6 days FWI 2.4 Min. humidity 46 % 68 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
307 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 12 of 19 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (244 ha against a median of 307 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 7 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

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

1.3 mmfirst rain
18 Jan3 days after it ended
56km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 15 Jan, and on 18 Jan 1.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 12 of 19, with a median of 1.8 mm.

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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jan 2022
After · 22 Jan 2022

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 17 January 2022 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1025 µg/m³
13 Jan15 Jan17 Jan
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Romania

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sulina fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 15 January 2022 and 15 January 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 244 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sulina (244 ha, 0.8 %); C.A. Rosetti (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 6.8 km of the centre of C.A. Rosetti, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 5.0 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2019 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 19. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 307 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. In 7 of 19, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

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
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

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 (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.