How long did the TARGUSOR fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2019 and 25 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 221 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: TARGUSOR (185 ha, 1.8 %); GRADINA (26 ha, 0.3 %); COGEALAC (10 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.2 km of TARGUSOR. 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 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 47 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

RO · Romania · 2019-08-25 → 2019-08-25

TARGUSOR fire, August 2019 TARGUSOR, GRADINA, COGEALAC

Out · last detection 25 Aug 2019, 10:45 UTC

The fire started on 25 August 2019 in TARGUSOR, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 221 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 19 in Romania in 2019, of 37.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 221ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 25 Aug 2019 – 25 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 25 Aug; 2019
Heat detections: 6; in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 87MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Aug25 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

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

49km/h · peak gust

47%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

TARGUSOR 1,375 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started

185 ha reached on 25 Aug

1.8 %
GRADINA 940 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town

26 ha reached on 25 Aug

0.3 %
COGEALAC 4,686 inhabitants · 12.8 km from the town

10 ha reached on 25 Aug

0.1 %

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

Other natural land86 %
Agricultural areas14 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

ZEPA Cheile Dobrogei ROSPA0019
LIC Recifii Jurasici Cheia ROSAC0215

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	Danger (FWI)
25 Aug	30.5 °C	47 %	49 km/h	High 30
26 Aug after	31.5 °C	33 %	42 km/h	High 32
27 Aug after	30.9 °C	36 %	32 km/h	High 27
28 Aug after	30.7 °C	32 %	36 km/h	High 30
29 Aug after	30.2 °C	33 %	27 km/h	High 27
30 Aug after	27.3 °C	43 %	34 km/h	High 27
31 Aug after	28.1 °C	30 %	41 km/h	High 32
1 Sept after	28.7 °C	33 %	38 km/h	High 31
2 Sept after	29.4 °C	34 %	33 km/h	High 29
3 Sept after	31.0 °C	29 %	18 km/h	High 26
4 Sept after	24.1 °C	53 %	42 km/h	High 27

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Aug 2019

After · 1 Sept 2019

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 27 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1032 µg/m³

WHO 15

232425262728

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 · 6Every 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 Romania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the TARGUSOR fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2019 and 25 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 221 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: TARGUSOR (185 ha, 1.8 %); GRADINA (26 ha, 0.3 %); COGEALAC (10 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.2 km of TARGUSOR. 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 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 47 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

IGSU · Inspectoratul General pentru Situații de Urgență ↗

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.

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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.

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.

Where it burned