Tropojë fire, 5 August 2024 Tropojë
The fire started on 5 August 2024 in Tropojë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 271 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Kukës since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 33 in Albania in 2024, of 70.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.8 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
- 271ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 5 Aug 2024 – 7 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 5 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 32
- in a single hotspot: 21 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 15MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 9 Aug.
This area had burned before
8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21 ha in 2022.
What happened to each town
-
Tropojë where it started271 ha reached on 5 Aug0.2 %
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
- Broadleaved forest74 %
- Other natural land22 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland4.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Aug | 25.8 °C | 36 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 6 Aug | 26.7 °C | 41 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 7 Aug | 28.5 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 8 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 34 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 9 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 2.6 mm | Very low 5 |
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 15 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 32Every 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 · 23 km away
- 2,069 haMunicipality of GjakovaJuly 2024 · 5 days · 26 km away
- 2,099 haPukëSeptember 2018 · 6 days · 29 km away
- 1,756 haPukë6 September 2026 · 6 days · 34 km away
- 4,419 haKukësAugust 2021 · 6 days · 35 km away
- 1,518 haShkodër4 August 2024 · 5 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tropojë fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 5 August 2024 and 7 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 271 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tropojë (271 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
- 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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.