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Vidlič fire, August 2024 Pirot Municipality, Dimitrovgrad Municipality

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2024, 00:49 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2024 in Dimitrovgrad Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,274 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Pirotski upravni okrug since 2016 (of 15 with a page). The largest in Serbia in 2024, of 82.

Burnt area
5,274ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
23 Aug 2024 – 27 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
23 Aug
2024
Heat detections
367
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
44km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.4 mm on 29 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Pirot Municipality Град Пирот 49,601 inhabitants · 8.3 km from the town where it started
    3,308 ha reached on 23 Aug
    2.7 %
  2. Dimitrovgrad Municipality Димитровград 8,043 inhabitants · 9.8 km from the town
    1,969 ha reached on 24 Aug
    4.1 %

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

  • Other natural land44 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland42 %
  • Broadleaved forest11 %
  • Agricultural areas3.2 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Požar na planini Vidlič · Požar u Basari kod Pirota · Požar na Staroj planini
Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 30 August 2024

Sources

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)
23 Aug 25.1 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
24 Aug 25.7 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
25 Aug 23.5 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Aug 23.4 °C 40 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
27 Aug 22.2 °C 41 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 Aug after 21.9 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
29 Aug after 22.6 °C 54 % 34 km/h 6.4 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Aug 2024
After · 3 Sept 2024

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 28 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1058 µg/m³
Optical depth0.52
2122232425262728293031
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 · 367Every 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 Serbia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vidlič fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 August 2024 and 27 August 2024: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,274 hectares (52.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pirot Municipality (3,308 ha, 2.7 %); Dimitrovgrad Municipality (1,969 ha, 4.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.3 km of Pirot Municipality. 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 25.7 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 44 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 Serbia (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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.