Croatia's Wildfires Reach Zagreb and Medjimurje

Croatia’s State Fire Operations Center (193) published a one day snapshot from the field on August 13, covering the 24 hour period from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. the following day, during which 150 firefighting interventions were logged. This time the fires did not stay on the coast and the islands: blazes broke out in Hrvatski Leskovec near Zagreb, in Pribislavec in Medjimurje County, near Petrinja and in Bjelovar, all in the flatland belt that continues across the Sava and Drava rivers into Vojvodina and northern Serbia.

The figures from the report show how much manpower was on the ground in a single day:

• 150 firefighting interventions
• 230 fire organizations involved in total
• 789 firefighters and 278 fire vehicles
• 7 water bomber planes
• 70.6 hectares of total burned area

What Does It Mean That Fires Reached the Continental Interior?

For years, Croatia’s fire season has been pictured in public as a Dalmatian story: the coast, the islands and the tourist resorts, because that is where the water bombers fly and where the scenes are most striking. The daily report from August 13 breaks that picture. The Zagreb City Fire Operations Center received a call at 3:04 p.m. on August 12 about an open area fire in Hrvatski Leskovec, where 13.5 hectares of grass and low vegetation burned. Twenty four firefighters with nine vehicles from the Zagreb public fire brigade and four volunteer societies put it out, and the intervention was closed at 6:15 p.m.

Four minutes later that same afternoon, the public fire brigade in Cakovec received a call for Varazdinska Street in Pribislavec, where nine hectares burned, with 11 firefighters and four vehicles responding. Near Petrinja, in the village of Begovici, seven firefighters with two vehicles stopped a five hectare grass fire. In Bjelovar, the fire broke out inside a building, a boiler room chimney at a wood processing plant, with 13 firefighters and six vehicles on scene and no injuries.

All four locations sit in continental Croatia, terrain with neither a jagged coastline nor pine forest, and all four fires were put out that same afternoon while the same crews were also needed in the south.

The Coast and Islands Still Take the Most Manpower

The largest single burned area that day was recorded near the village of Skrljevo in the municipality of Bakar, in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County: 30 hectares of grass and low vegetation, with 101 firefighters and 30 vehicles from the county, plus one Air Tractor plane deployed during the morning. The fire was brought under control but was not reported as extinguished.

The island of Brac had two fire sites that day. In Lovrecina Cove, 7.5 hectares of grass, low vegetation and pine forest burned, with 49 firefighters, 14 vehicles and two CL-415 water bombers. A few hours later, at 2:30 a.m. on August 13, a call came in for the Pucisca area, where 97 firefighters and 28 vehicles were deployed, backed by mainland county crews and four water bombers. In Dubrovnik, on Josip Kosor Street, 6,000 square meters of pine forest burned, with 32 firefighters and 10 vehicles responding. Near Vinisce, in the Trogir area, cleanup continued at a fire site that had ignited the day before.

This one day snapshot fits the picture we have already reported: from January 1 through mid August, Croatia recorded 8,832 fires, in which 23 people lost their lives. A single day with 150 interventions and 789 firefighters is, then, not an exception but the average of a brutal season, and the State Fire Operations Center notes that it received no reports of other major interventions from county fire commanders.