Vălișoara fire, 10 March 2025 Vălișoara, Brănișca, Șoimuș
The fire started on 10 March 2025 in Vălișoara, Romania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 452 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 10th largest in Hunedoara since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 26 in Romania in 2025, of 137.
The power measured by the satellite is low (2.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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Suggestions: Șoimuș · 2022Băița · 2025Vorța · 2025Vorța · 2025
- Burnt area
- 452ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 10 Mar 2025 – 11 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 3 MW
- Danger at start
- 16
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 17MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
10 Mar 2025 · 17 MW · 12
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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.8 mm on 13 Mar.
This area had burned before
43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 195 ha in 2022, 10 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 195 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Vălișoara where it started246 ha reached on 10 Mar7.2 %
-
195 ha reached on 10 Mar2.5 %
-
11 ha reached on 10 Mar0.2 %
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
- Broadleaved forest63 %
- Other natural land34 %
- Agricultural areas2.2 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.14 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Mar | 20.3 °C | 13 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Mar | 14.1 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 9.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 12 Mar after | 17.3 °C | 48 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very low 1 |
| 13 Mar after | 18.8 °C | 42 % | 62 km/h | 4.8 mm | Very low 1 |
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 9 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 12Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Vălișoara fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 10 March 2025 and 11 March 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 452 hectares (4.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Vălișoara (246 ha, 7.2 %); Brănișca (195 ha, 2.5 %); Șoimuș (11 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 20.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
- 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 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. 12 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 2025, 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 (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.