How long did the Vraneshtitsa fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2024 and 10 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 241 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Vraneshtitsa (241 ha, 2.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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.

MK · North Macedonia · 2024-08-08 → 2024-08-10

Vraneshtitsa fire, 8 August 2024 Vraneshtitsa

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2024, 11:47 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2024 in Vraneshtitsa, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 241 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Southwest since 2016 (of 62 with a page). Number 38 in North Macedonia in 2024, of 69.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Drugovo · 2024 Makedonski Brod · 2019 Makedonski Brod · 2025 Makedonski Brod · 2024

Burnt area: 241ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 8 Aug 2024 – 10 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 8 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 13; in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 233MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 2024 · 233 MW · 13

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

26km/h · peak gust

35%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Vraneshtitsa where it started

241 ha reached on 8 Aug

2.2 %

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

Scrub and transitional woodland80 %
Broadleaved forest14 %
Agricultural areas6.7 %

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)
8 Aug	28.8 °C	37 %	15 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 20
9 Aug	27.4 °C	42 %	25 km/h	0.2 mm	High 22
10 Aug	27.4 °C	35 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
11 Aug after	29.2 °C	34 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
12 Aug after	30.1 °C	34 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
13 Aug after	31.9 °C	27 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
14 Aug after	31.9 °C	29 %	22 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
15 Aug after	31.9 °C	30 %	19 km/h	0.3 mm	High 26
16 Aug after	32.0 °C	27 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Aug after	30.5 °C	36 %	21 km/h	2.2 mm	Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2024

After · 17 Aug 2024

Before After

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 13 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1011 µg/m³

Optical depth0.38

678910111213

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 · 13Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in North Macedonia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vraneshtitsa fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2024 and 10 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 241 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Vraneshtitsa (241 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Центар за управување со кризи ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 13 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned