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RO · Romania ·

Sulina fire, 19 February 2023 Sulina

Out · last measured on 19 Feb 2023

The fire started on 19 February 2023 in Sulina, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 449 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.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Blăgești · 2022Isaccea · 2022Sulina · 2022Sulina · 2020

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
449ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
19 Feb 2023 – 19 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
19 Feb
2023
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

14°high
40km/h · peak gust
55%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 26 Feb.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 325 ha in 2017, 403 ha in 2019, 417 ha in 2020, 436 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 445 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sulina 3,118 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre where it started
    449 ha
    1.4 %

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)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
19 Feb 14.2 °C 55 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 4
20 Feb after 8.8 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.5 mm Low 7
21 Feb after 16.5 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
22 Feb after 10.8 °C 48 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
23 Feb after 5.8 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
24 Feb after 7.1 °C 71 % 46 km/h 0.5 mm Low 7
25 Feb after 14.0 °C 60 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
26 Feb after 16.0 °C 60 % 46 km/h 1.1 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 4.2, a minimum humidity of 55% and 10 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2019: 19.

FWI at the start 4.2
Minimum humidity 55 %
Days without rain 10
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Blăgești fire, February 2022
111 ha 1 day FWI 7.0 Min. humidity 54 % 162 km away, in 2022

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

3 days
median duration
228 ha
median area
21 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 15 of 19 had it)

It was 2.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 3 days.

Only 6 of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 4 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 1.6 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

1.1 mmfirst rain
26 Feb7 days after it ended
40km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Feb, and on 26 Feb 1.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 15 of 19, with a median of 1.6 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 · 12 Feb 2023
After · 26 Feb 2023

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 18 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1042 µg/m³
Optical depth0.25
17 Feb19 Feb21 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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Romania

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sulina fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 19 February 2023 and 19 February 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 449 hectares (4.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sulina (449 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Sulina and came within 1.3 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 14.2 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, 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 3 days and their median area 228 ha; 21 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 6 of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 4 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 1.6 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.