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Topolovgrad fire, 30 August 2016 Тополовград · Topolovgrad, Harmanli

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2016, 10:44 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2016 in Topolovgrad, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,259 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Haskovo since 2016 (of 46 with a page). The largest in Bulgaria in 2016, of 24.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Harmanli · 2024Topolovgrad · 2020Svilengrad · 2023Harmanli · 2025

Burnt area
1,259ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
30 Aug 2016 – 1 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 Aug
2016
Heat detections
57
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
182MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug1 Sept
1 Sept 2016

How it evolved, day by day

30 Aug 2016 · 384 MW · 37 31 Aug 2016 · 109 MW · 15 1 Sept 2016 · 52 MW · 5
30 Aug 31 Aug 1 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
41km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (13 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Topolovgrad Тополовград 8,260 inhabitants · 14.3 km from the centre where it started
    1,147 ha reached on 30 Aug
    1.6 %
  2. Harmanli Харманли 22,716 inhabitants · 27.0 km from the centre
    113 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.2 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland63 %
  • Agricultural areas31 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.8 %
  • Mixed forest1.0 %
  • Coniferous forest1.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 68 %

  • 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)
30 Aug 26.7 °C 44 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
31 Aug 27.8 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
1 Sept 26.1 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
2 Sept after 25.0 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Sept after 25.6 °C 28 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Sept after 27.0 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Sept after 27.7 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Sept after 28.9 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Sept after 27.9 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.4 mm High 34
8 Sept after 28.4 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Sept after 28.8 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept after 28.4 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Sept after 26.7 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2016
After · 8 Sept 2016

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 30 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1030 µg/m³
282930311234
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 · 57Every 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 Topolovgrad fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 August 2016 and 1 September 2016: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,259 hectares (12.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Topolovgrad (1,147 ha, 1.6 %); Harmanli (113 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Topolovgrad and came within 14.3 km of its centre. 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 27.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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
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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 57 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.