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RS · Serbia · –

Vrsac Municipality fire, August 2026 Vršac · Vrsac Municipality

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2026, 12:00 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2026 in Vrsac Municipality, Serbia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 126 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Južnobanatski upravni okrug since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 42 in Serbia in 2026, of 54.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.3 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
126ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 2days
13 Aug 2026 – 14 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Aug
2026
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
27MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug14 Aug
14 Aug 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Aug 2026 · 6 MW · 2 14 Aug 2026 · 48 MW · 6
13 Aug 14 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
34km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 18 Aug.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

  1. Vrsac Municipality Vršac 31,946 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the centre where it started
    126 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas79 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland21 %

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 33.0 °C 16 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug 32.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Aug after 32.7 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
16 Aug after 34.7 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Aug after 37.2 °C 5 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Aug after 28.9 °C 28 % 41 km/h 1.5 mm High 34

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.6, a minimum humidity of 16% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 29.

FWI at the start 39.6
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Oravița fire, September 2026
325 ha 2 days FWI 40.7 Min. humidity 16 % 28 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.8 mm on 12 Sept.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
236 ha
median area
3 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.6 mm
rain at the end (median; 26 of 29 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 126 ha against a median of 236 ha. It lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

In 3 of 29, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.5 mmfirst rain
18 Aug4 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Aug, and on 18 Aug 1.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 26 of 29, with a median of 2.6 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2026
After · 21 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 11 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.66
11 Aug13 Aug15 Aug
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 · 8Every 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 Vrsac Municipality fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (13 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 14 August 2026 (2 days from 13 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 126 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vrsac Municipality (126 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Vrsac Municipality and came within 6.0 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 29. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 236 ha; 3 % went past 1,000 ha. In 3 of 29, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.6 mm.

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

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night 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
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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 8 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 (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.