Topleț fire, September 2026 Eșelnița, Topleț, Orșova
The fire started on 29 September 2026 in Topleț, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 115 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 172th largest in Caraș-Severin since 2016 (of 196 with a page). Number 52 in Romania in 2026, of 59.
The power measured by the satellite is low (8.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 115ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 10days
- 29 Sept 2026 – 8 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 10
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 6MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
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
It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.4 mm on 11 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Eșelnița 2,639 inhabitants · 7.2 km from the centre95 ha reached on 1 Oct0.5 %
-
19 ha reached on 30 Sept0.2 %
-
Orșova 8,506 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre1 ha0.0 %
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
- Broadleaved forest100 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Munții Almăjului - Locvei ROSPA0080
- LIC Porțile de Fier ROSCI0206
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Sept | 20.6 °C | 38 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 30 Sept | 18.9 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 1 Oct | 17.7 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 2 Oct | 18.6 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 3 Oct | 18.5 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 4 Oct | 21.4 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 5 Oct | 23.4 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Oct | 23.1 °C | 18 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Oct | 22.0 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Oct | 21.5 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Oct after | 21.4 °C | 40 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Oct after | 22.3 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 23 |
| 11 Oct after | 15.8 °C | 74 % | 43 km/h | 17.4 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 8 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,311 haKladovo Municipality КладовоAugust 2021 · 2 days · 21 km away
- 2,036 haKladovo Municipality КладовоSeptember 2024 · 3 days · 28 km away
- 2,705 haLăpușnicel20 March 2022 · 9 days · 29 km away
- 1,896 haLăpușnicel6 March 2025 · 5 days · 29 km away
- 1,897 haLăpușnicel23 March 2022 · 7 days · 30 km away
- 1,381 haSvinițaNovember 2024 · 8 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Topleț fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (2 October 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 8 October 2026 (10 days from 29 September 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Eșelnița (95 ha, 0.5 %); Topleț (19 ha, 0.2 %); Orșova (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Topleț fire still active?
- No fire detections since 7 Oct 2026, 01:26 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 4.1 km of the centre of Orșova, 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 23.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Name: Eșelnița → Topleț.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 10 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.
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.