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Svilengrad fire, 13 July 2024 Свиленград · Svilengrad

Out · last measured on 16 Jul 2024

The fire started on 13 July 2024 in Svilengrad, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 8,124 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Haskovo since 2016 (of 46 with a page). The largest in Bulgaria in 2024, of 62.

Burnt area
8,124ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
13 Jul 2024 – 16 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Jul
2024
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul16 Jul

The weather it burned in

37°high
55km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 24.6 mm on 19 Jul.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 202 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Svilengrad Свиленград 19,993 inhabitants · 9.3 km from the town where it started
    8,133 ha reached on 18 Jul
    11 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas52 %
  • Other natural land19 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland14 %
  • Coniferous forest6.6 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.8 %
  • Mixed forest4.2 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

  • ZEPA + LIC Sakar BG0000212 · BG0002021

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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Пожарът в Сакар · Пожар в Свиленградско · Sakar mountain fire

Sources

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)
13 Jul 35.7 °C 24 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Jul 35.9 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Jul 35.4 °C 16 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
16 Jul 37.3 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
17 Jul after 37.9 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
18 Jul after 38.9 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
19 Jul after 34.4 °C 34 % 45 km/h 24.6 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jul 2024
After · 23 Jul 2024

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 16 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
111213141516171819
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 · 1Every 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 13 July 2024 and 16 July 2024: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 8,124 hectares (81.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Svilengrad (8,133 ha, 11 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.3 km of Svilengrad. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 75, class Very extreme.
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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.