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BA · Bosnia & Herzegovina · –

Zenica fire, 6 April 2020 Busovača, Zenica

Out · last detection 10 Apr 2020, 10:51 UTC

The fire started on 6 April 2020 in Zenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 114 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 471th largest in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2016 (of 521 with a page). Number 167 in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2020, of 183.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…
Burnt area
114ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
7days
6 Apr 2020 – 12 Apr 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
6 Apr
2020
Heat detections
24
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
18MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Apr12 Apr
10 Apr 2020

How it evolved, day by day

6 Apr 2020 · 23 MW · 5 7 Apr 2020 · 20 MW · 5 8 Apr 2020 · 37 MW · 11 9 Apr 2020 · 7 MW · 2 10 Apr 2020 · 1 MW · 1
6 Apr 7 Apr 8 Apr 9 Apr 10 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 17.2 mm on 14 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. 58 ha reached on 6 Apr
    0.4 %
  2. Zenica where it started
    56 ha reached on 6 Apr
    0.1 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest94 %
  • Agricultural areas6.0 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
6 Apr 16.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
7 Apr 17.4 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
8 Apr 16.9 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
9 Apr 20.2 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
10 Apr 19.8 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
11 Apr 18.9 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
12 Apr 21.1 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
13 Apr after 20.3 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
14 Apr after 10.9 °C 67 % 40 km/h 17.2 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 7.3, a minimum humidity of 24% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 28.

FWI at the start 7.3
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bileća fire, March 2025
115 ha 2 days FWI 6.2 Min. humidity 24 % 134 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 14.3 mm on 10 Mar.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
202 ha
median area
4 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 28 of 28 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 114 ha against a median of 202 ha. It lasted 7 days, against 3 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.0 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

17.2 mmfirst rain
14 Apr2 days after it ended
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 12 Apr, and on 14 Apr 17.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 28 of 28, with a median of 4.0 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 · 30 Mar 2020
After · 19 Apr 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 24Every 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 Bosnia & Herzegovina

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zenica fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 April 2020 to 12 April 2020 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 April 2020 to 6 April 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 114 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Busovača (58 ha, 0.4 %); Zenica (56 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 21.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Bosnia & Herzegovina (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: 28. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 202 ha; 4 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.0 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: 123 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 6 April 2020 → 12 April 2020.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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 123 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 April 2020 to 6 April 2020. 24 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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 ADM3 (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.