Topolovgrad fire, 31 August 2016 Тополовград · Topolovgrad, Galabovo
The fire started on 31 August 2016 in Topolovgrad, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 598 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 16th largest in Haskovo since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 8 in Bulgaria in 2016, of 24.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.6 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
- 598ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 31 Aug 2016 – 2 Sept 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Aug
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 34MW
- 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 7 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?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Sofia boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, Wikimedia (Public Domain).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
367 ha reached on 31 Aug0.5 %
-
232 ha reached on 31 Aug0.6 %
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
- Agricultural areas47 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland36 %
- Broadleaved forest12 %
- Mixed forest4.5 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Aug | 30.5 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 23 |
| 1 Sept | 28.9 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Sept | 27.7 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 28 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 21 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 27 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 6 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 31 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 7 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 41 % | 45 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Sept after | 29.4 °C | 37 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Sept after | 29.1 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Sept after | 28.8 °C | 38 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Sept after | 27.9 °C | 45 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Sept after | 27.6 °C | 38 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
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.
Detections table · 21Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,531 haTopolovgrad ТополовградSeptember 2020 · 2 days · 10 km away
- 1,446 haHarmanli ХарманлиJune 2024 · 2 days · 13 km away
- 2,719 haHarmanli ХарманлиAugust 2025 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 1,374 haSvilengrad СвиленградAugust 2023 · 2 days · 22 km away
- 8,124 haSvilengrad Свиленград13 July 2024 · 6 days · 27 km away
- 7,848 haElhovo ЕлховоJuly 2025 · 6 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Topolovgrad fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 31 August 2016 and 2 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 598 hectares (6.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Topolovgrad (367 ha, 0.5 %); Galabovo (232 ha, 0.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Topolovgrad and came within 18.0 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 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 21 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.