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Yablanitsa fire, March 2025 Ябланица · Yablanitsa

Out · last detection 11 Mar 2025, 11:16 UTC

The fire started on 10 March 2025 in Yablanitsa, Bulgaria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 341 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Lovech since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 19 in Bulgaria in 2025, of 44.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.5 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
341ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
10 Mar 2025 – 11 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Mar
2025
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 1 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Mar11 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

11

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
34km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 13 Mar.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 142 ha in 2019, 10 ha in 2021, 12 ha in 2023, 207 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 275 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Yablanitsa Ябланица 5,419 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town where it started
    341 ha reached on 11 Mar
    1.8 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest48 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland45 %
  • Agricultural areas7.0 %
  • Other land cover0.6 %

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)
10 Mar 22.1 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
11 Mar 22.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
12 Mar after 23.0 °C 39 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Low 9
13 Mar after 22.0 °C 37 % 56 km/h 1.0 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Mar 2025
After · 18 Mar 2025

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 8 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.41
891011121314
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 · 1Every 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 Bulgaria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Yablanitsa 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 341 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yablanitsa (341 ha, 1.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.3 km of Yablanitsa. 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 22.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Low.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bulgaria (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

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
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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 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 (Public Domain). 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.