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Svilengrad fire, 14 August 2022 Свиленград · Svilengrad, Topolovgrad

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2022, 10:01 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2022 in Svilengrad, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 440 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 25th largest in Haskovo since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 6 in Bulgaria in 2022, of 41.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Topolovgrad · 2020Svilengrad · 2017Topolovgrad · 2023Elhovo · 2025

Burnt area
440ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
14 Aug 2022 – 16 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Aug
2022
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Average daily power
130MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

14 Aug 2022 · 130 MW · 5

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
27km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 22 Aug.

This area had burned before

78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 189 ha in 2017, 194 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 343 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Svilengrad Свиленград 19,993 inhabitants · 35.1 km from the centre where it started
    384 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.5 %
  2. Topolovgrad Тополовград 8,260 inhabitants · 28.0 km from the centre
    33 ha reached on 14 Aug
    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 land88 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland10 %
  • Other land cover1.4 %

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)
14 Aug 30.8 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
15 Aug 30.8 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
16 Aug 34.3 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Aug after 34.5 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug after 34.9 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug after 35.8 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Aug after 34.8 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Aug after 32.3 °C 40 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
22 Aug after 32.8 °C 43 % 27 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2022
After · 23 Aug 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 13 August 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
Optical depth0.37
1213141516171819
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 · 5Every 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 Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Svilengrad fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2022 and 16 August 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 440 hectares (4.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Svilengrad (384 ha, 0.5 %); Topolovgrad (33 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 28.0 km of the centre of Topolovgrad, 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 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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

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
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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. 5 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.

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 (Public Domain). 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.