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Veles fire, August 2026 Општина Велес · Veles, Zelenikovo

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2026, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2026 in Veles, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 354 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 21th largest in Vardar since 2016 (of 49 with a page). Number 16 in North Macedonia in 2026, of 40.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.8 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
354ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
13 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
13 Aug
2026
Heat detections
21
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
17MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

14

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
36km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 14 Aug.

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 145 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Veles Општина Велес 48,463 inhabitants · 11.3 km from the town where it started
    336 ha reached on 14 Aug
    0.8 %
  2. Zelenikovo Општина Зелениково 3,361 inhabitants · 10.0 km from the town
    18 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.1 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland72 %
  • Broadleaved forest25 %
  • Agricultural areas3.3 %

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)
13 Aug 31.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm High 37
14 Aug after 29.7 °C 31 % 33 km/h 3.5 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2026
After · 20 Aug 2026

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 12 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
111213141516
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 · 21Every 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 North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Veles fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 August 2026 and 13 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 354 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Veles (336 ha, 0.8 %); Zelenikovo (18 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.0 km of Zelenikovo. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of North Macedonia (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: 193 · 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
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 193 · 112.

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.