Sjenica Wildfire Out of Control, Burns 50 Hectares
Fire near the village of Koznik, in the Sjenica area, is burning into a second day and has spread over roughly 50 hectares, with homes nearby safe. Serbia has 20 active wildfires, three uncontained.
A wildfire near the village of Koznik, in the Sjenica area, is burning into its second day and remains out of control. The fire was first spotted in the afternoon of August 28, and firefighters had still not brought it under control by the morning of August 29.
Reports from the ground indicate the fire started near the village of Muhovo and has so far burned through roughly 50 hectares of land. Homes in the surrounding villages are not under threat, and local residents are safe.
According to the Emergency Situations Sector of Serbia’s Interior Ministry, the country had a total of 20 active open-air wildfires as of August 29. Three of them were not yet contained: alongside the blaze near Koznik, those were the fire at Deliblatska Pescara and on Mount Stolovi, as well as a fire near Lukovo in the Vranje area, where crews stopped the flames from reaching the settlement but had not yet extinguished them.
Stolovi Has Been Burning Since August 5
The longest-running battle is on Mount Stolovi, where the fire broke out on August 5 and has since spread across roughly 200 hectares of inaccessible, rocky terrain. Around 45 firefighters, volunteer firefighters and workers from Srbijasume, the state forestry company, have been deployed there with 10 fire engines. The steep, hard-to-reach terrain has so far ruled out fully containing the blaze, though conditions have improved in recent days as winds have died down overnight.
Smaller fires have also been recorded on Mount Goc near Vrnjacka Banja, where about 10 hectares of pine forest burned, and near Kaona by Lucani, where flames spread across more than 80 hectares before being brought under control.
Deliblatska Pescara Awaits Forecast Winds
We previously reported on Deliblatska Pescara when it had no active fire sites, alongside a forecast for winds of up to 90 kilometers per hour. The situation there remains calm for now, with no new outbreaks and no reignition of earlier ones, but the operation on the ground remains large in scale: more than 570 people, 171 vehicles, nine pieces of heavy machinery and three off-road four-wheelers have been deployed, with helicopters on standby. Firefighters have so far cut roughly 90 kilometers of firebreaks, ranging from 30 to 150 meters wide.
Help is also arriving from abroad. Sixty-nine firefighters from Romania, with 15 vehicles, are stationed in Bela Crkva, and support through the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism has been extended until September 5. Forecasters are calling for strong southeasterly winds at Deliblatska Pescara, with gusts of 15 to 17 meters per second and locally up to 20 meters per second, alongside temperatures around 35 degrees Celsius, conditions that could reignite the fire.
