Croatia: 8,832 Wildfires Since January, 23 Dead
Croatia had recorded 8,832 wildfires by August 10, with 9,646 hectares burned, 75 percent more than last year, and 23 people killed and 145 injured, including 24 firefighters.
The State Firefighting Operations Centre has released a mid season snapshot showing that Croatia recorded 8,832 wildfires between January 1 and August 10, with flames burning through 9,646 hectares, three quarters more than in the same period last year. The figures are not just a Croatian statistic. The sharpest increase is on the Dalmatian coast and its hinterland, the stretch of the Adriatic where large numbers of Serbian citizens spend their August holidays, so the numbers out of Zagreb also read as a record of how much of that coastline has been on fire this summer.
Overall, Croatian firefighters logged 29,358 interventions in just over seven months. Of those, 8,832 were fires, and 20,526 were technical interventions, accidents and other calls. The total number of fires is up 7.62 percent from the same period in 2025, though the increase is not spread evenly.
Broken down by type, the picture looks like this:
- open area fires: 5,575, up 12.99 percent
- vegetation fires: 3,897, up 23.40 percent
- structure fires: 2,569, down 0.08 percent
- vehicle fires: 689, down 1.99 percent
The human toll is heavier than last year. Wildfires have killed 23 people, the same number as in the same period last year, while the number of injured rose from 118 to 145. Among the injured are 24 firefighters, meaning roughly one in six of the injured is someone who came to the fire to put it out.
Why Are There More Fires Than Last Summer?
The explanation offered by Croatia’s firefighting service is meteorological, not organizational. A long dry spell with high temperatures dried out the vegetation, and several dry thunderstorms struck during the season, each one spawning multiple fires within a short span of time.
“According to the statistics, we have an increased number of open area fire interventions compared to last year. We can link the increase to weather conditions, that is, a long dry period with high temperatures that dry out the vegetation. This year we also had dry thunderstorms on several occasions, which caused multiple fires to break out in a short period. Despite the large number of fires, our firefighters and aerial units have acted successfully and put out most of the fires quickly,” said Slavko Tucakovic, Croatia’s chief firefighting commander.
That is also where the clearest sign of pressure on the system shows up: aircraft were deployed to 104 fires this year, flying 273 sorties in total, compared with 58 fires and 152 sorties in the same period last year.
Many Fires, Few Major Blazes
The public impression that fewer fires are burning this summer comes from the fact that there have been fewer large, multi day blazes making headlines. Tucakovic says that impression is wrong, and that the real difference is in how fast crews respond, not in how many fires start.
“There are fires, even more of them than before. Every day a large number are put out quickly, we catch them at the very start and don’t let them grow into a major fire,” Tucakovic said.
As an example, he cited four fires extinguished in a single night that, because of the speed of the response, never even made the news. Two water bombing aircraft were sent to Brac immediately, firefighters in Dubrovnik put out a pine forest fire covering about 6,000 square meters on their own overnight, and one of the larger fires this year, near Slunj, burned around 100 hectares. On one day alone, firefighters handled roughly 140 interventions.
One notable feature of this season is that the fires are not sticking to the coast. On the night of August 11 into 12, the largest deployment was near Cernik in Brod-Posavina County, where grass and low brush burned across around 100 hectares, with 42 firefighters and 12 vehicles on site. That same night, grass and young pine forest burned in Vinisca in Split-Dalmatia County, with 27 firefighters and 10 vehicles responding, while near Dubrovnik about 6,000 square meters of pine forest burned, with 32 firefighters and 10 vehicles on the scene.
“The response is fast, everyone is mobilized right away. Instructions and orders are issued, patrols are carried out, and everything we do is focused on maximum caution,” Tucakovic said, adding that this level of readiness needs to hold for several more days, until the extreme heat eases.
Herzegovina and the EU Mechanism
Croatian services are also monitoring a fire in neighboring Herzegovina that is spreading under the influence of strong wind. Tucakovic said his people had gone to the area to assess the strength of the fire.
“We are monitoring it, our people have gone there to check the strength of the fire, and we will make decisions during the day,” he said.
That raises a question that is not about firefighting but about procedure. For Croatian crews to operate on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo has to request assistance through CECIS, the Common Emergency Communication and Information System, and the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism. The same channel is used every summer to help non EU countries in the region, so a decision to send aircraft or fire trucks across the border is, in practice, made in coordination with Brussels, not just between two neighboring services.
For now, Croatian firefighters remain on full alert. Temperatures are high, the bura wind is blowing and helping fire spread quickly, and the chief firefighting commander summed up the message in three words: “We must be ready.” The next snapshot from the State Firefighting Operations Centre will show whether August, the month when Croatia’s fire statistics typically spike, confirmed this trend or deepened it.
