How long did the Zhelino fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 July 2025 to 22 July 2025 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2025 to 20 July 2025.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 250 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Zhelino (250 ha, 1.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Zhelino and came within 11.3 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 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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 · 2025-07-19 → 2025-07-22

Zhelino fire, July 2025 Општина Желино · Zhelino

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2025, 00:00 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2025 in Zhelino, North Macedonia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 250 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Polog since 2016 (of 49 with a page). Number 17 in North Macedonia in 2025, of 37.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Saraj · 2017 Saraj · 2026 Jegunovtse · 2025 Makedonski Brod · 2017

Burnt area: 250ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 19 Jul 2025 – 22 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 19 Jul; 2025
Heat detections: 27; in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 294MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul22 Jul

Play back 22 Jul 2025

How it evolved, day by day

19 Jul 20 Jul 22 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

38km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 29 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Zhelino Општина Желино 13,645 inhabitants · 11.3 km from the centre where it started

250 ha reached on 19 Jul

1.2 %

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 woodland55 %
Sclerophyllous scrub38 %
Broadleaved forest7.3 %

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)
19 Jul	28.3 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
20 Jul	31.6 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
21 Jul	34.3 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Jul	34.2 °C	23 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
23 Jul after	33.0 °C	28 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Jul after	34.7 °C	21 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
25 Jul after	35.8 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
26 Jul after	36.0 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 34
27 Jul after	31.0 °C	32 %	44 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
28 Jul after	27.2 °C	34 %	25 km/h	0.1 mm	High 26
29 Jul after	24.4 °C	48 %	31 km/h	2.4 mm	Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Jul 2025

After · 29 Jul 2025

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 22 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1026 µg/m³

Optical depth0.39

17181920212223

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 · 27Every 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 Zhelino fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 July 2025 to 22 July 2025 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 July 2025 to 20 July 2025.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 250 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Zhelino (250 ha, 1.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Zhelino and came within 11.3 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 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.

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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?

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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 193 · 112.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 July 2025 to 20 July 2025. 27 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