How long did the Svilengrad fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 20 June 2025 and 20 June 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 240 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Svilengrad (240 ha, 0.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.1 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 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.

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.

BG · Bulgaria · 2025-06-20 → 2025-06-20

Svilengrad fire, June 2025 Свиленград · Svilengrad

Out · last detection 20 Jun 2025, 11:24 UTC

The fire started on 20 June 2025 in Svilengrad, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 240 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Haskovo since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 25 in Bulgaria in 2025, of 44.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Svilengrad · 2023 Harmanli · 2024 Svilengrad · 2024 Harmanli · 2025

Burnt area: 240ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 20 Jun 2025 – 20 Jun 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 20 Jun; 2025
Heat detections: 8; in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 119MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jun20 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jun 2025 · 119 MW · 8

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

37km/h · peak gust

38%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.9 mm on 28 Jun.

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 223 ha in 2023.

223 ha Svilengrad fire, August 2023 1,374 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Svilengrad Свиленград 19,993 inhabitants · 11.1 km from the town where it started

240 ha reached on 20 Jun

0.3 %

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

Scrub and transitional woodland56 %
Agricultural areas40 %
Broadleaved 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.

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)
20 Jun	29.9 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 19
21 Jun after	25.9 °C	41 %	36 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 19
22 Jun after	27.1 °C	36 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
23 Jun after	31.7 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
24 Jun after	34.9 °C	17 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 Jun after	34.2 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Jun after	36.2 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 Jun after	36.0 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.4 mm	High 31
28 Jun after	28.5 °C	47 %	37 km/h	6.9 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Jun 2025

After · 27 Jun 2025

Before After

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 20 June 2025 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1014 µg/m³

Optical depth0.40

181920212223

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 · 8Every 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

All fires in Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Svilengrad fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 20 June 2025 and 20 June 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 240 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Svilengrad (240 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.1 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 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, class Moderate.
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

ГДПБЗН · Пожарна безопасност и защита на населението ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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. 8 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.

Where it burned