Burned area
satellite only1,273ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 24 October 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
RO · Romania · –
Sulina fire, 9 April 2022 Sulina, Sfântu Gheorghe, Crișan
Out · last detection 13 Apr 2022, 00:22 UTC
The fire started on 9 April 2022 in Sulina, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,273 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 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.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.5 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 only5days
9 Apr 2022 to 13 Apr 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 13 Apr 2022, 00:22 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 only9 Apr 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 9 Apr 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only13
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 17 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 9 Apr 2022 – 13 Apr 2022
+− 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 only55MW
Total radiative power on 10 April 2022; hotspots that day: 6.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 10 Apr 2022
+− 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
model12.9FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 5.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 9 Apr 2022, 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
model16.8°C · 57% RH
High of 16.8 °C and minimum humidity of 57% on 9 April 2022; gusts of 61 km/h on 11 April 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 9 Apr 2022 – 13 Apr 2022
- 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
- 1,273 ha
- Dates
- 9 Apr 2022 – 13 Apr 2022
- Name
- Sulina
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/sulina-2022-04-2?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-2022-04-2.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-04-09 | 2 | 4 | 16.8 | 11 | 57 | 27.9 | 45.7 | 0 | 12.9 | moderado | 1 |
| 2022-04-10 | 6 | 55 | 13.8 | 7.2 | 71 | 33.2 | 51.5 | 0.1 | 10 | bajo | 1 |
| 2022-04-11 | 1 | 2 | 10.3 | 6.4 | 48 | 38.8 | 60.8 | 1.4 | 8.8 | bajo | 1 |
| 2022-04-12 | 2 | 4 | 11.1 | 5.3 | 38 | 31.7 | 50.4 | 0.2 | 18.2 | moderado | 1 |
| 2022-04-13 | 2 | 5 | 13.8 | 5.8 | 34 | 33.5 | 51.8 | 0.2 | 24.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-04-14 | 0 | 0 | 16.3 | 9.2 | 45 | 21.6 | 34.9 | 0 | 12.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2022-04-15 | 0 | 0 | 16.1 | 7.7 | 49 | 22.2 | 33.1 | 0 | 12.1 | moderado | 0 |
| 2022-04-16 | 0 | 0 | 15.7 | 9.4 | 62 | 24 | 37.4 | 0 | 10.5 | bajo | 0 |
| 2022-04-17 | 0 | 0 | 11.1 | 5.8 | 81 | 32.4 | 49 | 5.1 | 7.3 | 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
- 1,273ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 9 Apr 2022 – 13 Apr 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Apr
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 13
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 14MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
9 Apr13 Apr
13 Apr 2022
How it evolved, day by day
9 Apr
10 Apr
11 Apr
12 Apr
13 Apr
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
17°high
61km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity
It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.1 mm on 17 Apr.
This area had burned before
66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2019, 793 ha in 2020.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Bucharest boundary: geoBoundaries · World Bank (CC BY 4.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,271 ha reached on 9 Apr3.9 %
-
Sfântu Gheorghe 639 inhabitants · 16.3 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
-
Crișan 1,092 inhabitants · 16.7 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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 land95 %
- Other land cover4.9 %
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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Apr | 16.8 °C | 57 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 10 Apr | 13.8 °C | 71 % | 52 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 10 |
| 11 Apr | 10.3 °C | 48 % | 61 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 9 |
| 12 Apr | 11.1 °C | 38 % | 50 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Apr | 13.8 °C | 34 % | 52 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 14 Apr after | 16.3 °C | 45 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 15 Apr after | 16.1 °C | 49 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 16 Apr after | 15.7 °C | 62 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 17 Apr after | 11.1 °C | 81 % | 49 km/h | 5.1 mm | Low 7 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 12.9, a minimum humidity of 57% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 13.
FWI at the start
12.9
Minimum humidity
57 %
Days without rain
5
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Sulina fire, 9 April 2022
1,273 ha
5 days
FWI 12.9
Min. humidity 57 %
Izmali fire, April 2022
449 ha
1 day
FWI 14.7
Min. humidity 54 %
55 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.6 mm on 29 Apr.
Holo Prystan fire, September 2025
1,805 ha
3 days
FWI 14.6
Min. humidity 56 %
225 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.6 mm on 29 Sept.
Holo Prystan fire, June 2022
244 ha
3 days
FWI 19.6
Min. humidity 56 %
236 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.6 mm on 10 Jun.
Blăgești fire, February 2022
111 ha
1 day
FWI 7.0
Min. humidity 54 %
165 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Isaccea fire, February 2022
228 ha
2 days
FWI 4.5
Min. humidity 59 %
80 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.5 mm on 20 Feb.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 13. 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
5.1 mmfirst rain
17 Apr4 days after it ended
61km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 13 Apr, and on 17 Apr 5.1 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 · 2 Apr 2022
After · 20 Apr 2022
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 8 April 2022 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
7 Apr9 Apr11 Apr13 Apr15 Apr
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 · 13Every 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 · 9 km away
- 10,843 haSfântu GheorgheJanuary 2025 · 5 days · 10 km away
- 9,392 haSfântu Gheorghe18 March 2022 · 5 days · 15 km away
- 10,396 haSfântu Gheorghe10 March 2019 · 8 days · 19 km away
- 10,147 haSfântu Gheorghe18 February 2025 · 6 days · 20 km away
- 7,692 haSulina20 March 2022 · 9 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sulina fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 9 April 2022 and 13 April 2022: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,273 hectares (12.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sulina (1,271 ha, 3.9 %); Sfântu Gheorghe (0 ha, 0.0 %); Crișan (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Sulina and came within 12.2 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 16.8 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 61 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 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. 13 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.