Tropojë fire, March 2019 Tropojë
The fire started on 29 March 2019 in Tropojë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 117 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 18th largest in Kukës since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 26 in Albania in 2019, of 31.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 117ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 29 Mar 2019 – 30 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Mar
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 16
- in a single hotspot: 49 MW
- Danger at start
- 8
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 86MW
- 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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.4 mm on 5 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Tropojë where it started117 ha reached on 29 Mar0.1 %
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 forest89 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland7.6 %
- Agricultural areas3.4 %
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 Mar | 13.9 °C | 26 % | 77 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 30 Mar | 15.7 °C | 30 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 31 Mar after | 19.2 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 Apr after | 19.4 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 2 Apr after | 18.8 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 8 |
| 3 Apr after | 15.2 °C | 52 % | 37 km/h | 0.3 mm | Low 7 |
| 4 Apr after | 14.8 °C | 50 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Low 7 |
| 5 Apr after | 10.5 °C | 80 % | 43 km/h | 12.4 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 27 March 2019 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 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 · 16Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,911 haMunicipality of GjakovaAugust 2019 · 6 days · 19 km away
- 2,069 haMunicipality of GjakovaJuly 2024 · 5 days · 23 km away
- 2,099 haPukëSeptember 2018 · 11 days · 32 km away
- 4,419 haKukësAugust 2021 · 20 days · 36 km away
- 1,756 haPukë6 September 2026 · 6 days · 38 km away
- 1,518 haShkodër4 August 2024 · 6 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tropojë fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 29 March 2019 and 30 March 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 117 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tropojë (117 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 15.7 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (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: 128 · 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. 16 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 2.5 Generic). 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.