Fire atlas
Fires in Germany
Satellite-detected fires in Germany right now, plus five years of NASA FIRMS archive: 23,382 detections, 13,724 distinct fires, season and worst years by region.
Fires burning now in Germany
Reading the latest satellite pass…
Window: last 24 hours, NASA FIRMS
See it on the mapFive years of archive
2020 to 2026 · through 2026-07-31
The years up to 2024 come from NASA’s finalized yearly archives. What follows, through 2026-07-31, comes from its near-real-time interface: 2026 is therefore a partial year, and its most recent weeks have not yet received the classification that removes volcanoes, flares and industrial sources. A very recent fire counts here, with a little more noise around it.
- Satellite detections
- 23,382
- Distinct fires
- 13,724
- Busiest month
- April
- Worst year
- 2026
- Strongest signal
- 886 MW
- Seen at night
- 26.9%
- Detections per 1,000 km²
- 65.6
Detections per year
| Year | Detections |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 2,441 |
| 2021 | 1,601 |
| 2022 | 2,962 |
| 2023 | 2,774 |
| 2024 | 2,581 |
| 2025 | 4,747 |
| 2026 | 6,276 |
The season
Share of detections by month, over the five years together.
| Month | Detections |
|---|---|
| Jan | 66 |
| Feb | 260 |
| Mar | 1,927 |
| Apr | 4,018 |
| May | 3,901 |
| Jun | 3,394 |
| Jul | 3,678 |
| Aug | 3,352 |
| Sep | 2,311 |
| Oct | 321 |
| Nov | 96 |
| Dec | 58 |
The most affected areas
| Area | Detections |
|---|---|
| Bavaria | 5,248 |
| Brandenburg | 2,706 |
| Nordrhein-Westfalen | 2,688 |
| Lower Saxony | 2,383 |
| Sachsen-Anhalt | 1,968 |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 1,628 |
| Baden-Württemberg | 1,255 |
| Saxony | 1,103 |
| Schleswig-Holstein | 1,058 |
| Rheinland-Pfalz | 952 |
| Thüringen | 792 |
| Hessen | 552 |
The season is not the same everywhere
Each row is scaled to its own peak, so the comparison is between calendars rather than volumes. A row lighting up in summer is a forest-fire regime; a row lighting up in late winter signals agricultural burning.
| Area | Detections |
|---|---|
| Bavaria | Jan: 8 · Feb: 47 · Mar: 551 · Apr: 1,289 · May: 493 · Jun: 496 · Jul: 453 · Aug: 1,013 · Sep: 808 · Oct: 76 · Nov: 9 · Dec: 5 |
| Brandenburg | Jan: 8 · Feb: 22 · Mar: 317 · Apr: 494 · May: 403 · Jun: 454 · Jul: 432 · Aug: 324 · Sep: 208 · Oct: 34 · Nov: 7 · Dec: 3 |
| Nordrhein-Westfalen | Jan: 4 · Feb: 20 · Mar: 142 · Apr: 214 · May: 685 · Jun: 582 · Jul: 628 · Aug: 213 · Sep: 117 · Oct: 29 · Nov: 39 · Dec: 15 |
| Lower Saxony | Jan: 12 · Feb: 45 · Mar: 193 · Apr: 381 · May: 501 · Jun: 458 · Jul: 407 · Aug: 202 · Sep: 138 · Oct: 30 · Nov: 9 · Dec: 7 |
| Sachsen-Anhalt | Jan: 7 · Feb: 36 · Mar: 177 · Apr: 273 · May: 249 · Jun: 210 · Jul: 308 · Aug: 365 · Sep: 303 · Oct: 30 · Nov: 9 · Dec: 1 |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Jan: 0 · Feb: 11 · Mar: 114 · Apr: 276 · May: 266 · Jun: 359 · Jul: 204 · Aug: 247 · Sep: 126 · Oct: 21 · Nov: 1 · Dec: 3 |
| Baden-Württemberg | Jan: 2 · Feb: 27 · Mar: 131 · Apr: 221 · May: 173 · Jun: 146 · Jul: 169 · Aug: 179 · Sep: 158 · Oct: 35 · Nov: 3 · Dec: 11 |
| Saxony | Jan: 1 · Feb: 7 · Mar: 72 · Apr: 136 · May: 230 · Jun: 114 · Jul: 344 · Aug: 103 · Sep: 77 · Oct: 15 · Nov: 1 · Dec: 3 |
| Schleswig-Holstein | Jan: 7 · Feb: 10 · Mar: 47 · Apr: 249 · May: 191 · Jun: 157 · Jul: 118 · Aug: 193 · Sep: 74 · Oct: 1 · Nov: 9 · Dec: 2 |
| Rheinland-Pfalz | Jan: 0 · Feb: 8 · Mar: 58 · Apr: 166 · May: 199 · Jun: 76 · Jul: 135 · Aug: 180 · Sep: 103 · Oct: 24 · Nov: 1 · Dec: 2 |
Regions
| Area | Detections |
|---|---|
| Bavaria | 5,248 |
| Brandenburg | 2,706 |
| Nordrhein-Westfalen | 2,688 |
| Lower Saxony | 2,383 |
| Sachsen-Anhalt | 1,968 |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 1,628 |
| Baden-Württemberg | 1,255 |
| Saxony | 1,103 |
| Schleswig-Holstein | 1,058 |
| Rheinland-Pfalz | 952 |
| Thüringen | 792 |
| Hessen | 552 |
| Saarland | 401 |
| Bremen | 333 |
| Hamburg | 264 |
| Berlin | 51 |
The largest recorded fires
The largest fires recorded here over five years — when each was first seen from orbit, and where.
873 detections · 6.6 km across · 37 MW
533 detections · 4.4 km across · 35 MW
310 detections · 3.9 km across · 24 MW
192 detections · 2.7 km across · 13 MW
162 detections · 4.3 km across · 45 MW
A first detection is not an ignition. A polar satellite passes only a few times a day, so a fire is seen on the next overpass — sometimes hours after it started, in a pixel about 375 m across. The point given is where it was first seen, not where it began. The span is the straight-line distance between detections: a floor on how far the fire reached, never a burned area. The named municipality is the one nearest the centre of the detections.
Aerial response in Germany
23 verified aircraft in the catalog, tracked over ADS-B when they transmit.
See the Germany registerThe questions people ask
- Where are the wildfires in Germany today?
- The region table below shows, for each of them, the satellite detections from the last 24 hours. Open a region to go down to the province, or go straight to the map, which shows every detection point with its time and its power.
- Which regions of Germany burn the most?
- The ranking below answers directly: regions are sorted by satellite detections over five years, most affected first. Each row leads to a page detailing its season, its worst years and its largest fires.
- When is the fire season in Germany?
- Over five years, April is the month with the most detections in Germany. But a national average hides opposite regimes: the Mediterranean coast burns in summer, while some inland regions peak in late winter because of agricultural burning.
- Can this map replace an official alert?
- No. Fire Maps shows observations and models, with their timestamps and their limits; it replaces neither the authorities, nor official alerts, nor incident command. In immediate danger, call the emergency services and follow official instructions.
How to read this page
A detection is not a fire. It is a pixel the satellite saw radiating like fire. One fire lights several pixels and comes back on every overpass: the unit counted here is evidence of heat, not the incident. That is why the page also gives a count of distinct fires, obtained by chaining detections that are close in space and in time.
The archive has gaps, and they are not random. A polar satellite passes a few times a day; under cloud it sees nothing; a fire smaller than the pixel can go unnoticed; a fire smouldering under canopy radiates little. An area with no detection is an area where nothing was seen — which is not the same as an area where nothing burned.
Two filters were applied, and this is what they removed. First NASA's own classification: 79,140 rows flagged as volcano, fixed ground source or offshore flare were discarded. Then persistence: 363 cells of about 500 metres lit in six different months across at least three distinct years behave like an industrial installation rather than a season; their 6,410 detections were removed.
Not everything that burns is a wildfire. Stubble burning, pastoral burning and the disposal of agricultural residue all produce perfectly real detections, often outside the summer season. A February or March peak on this page is almost always that.
The administrative outlines are generalized to a few hundred metres. A detection falling right on a boundary may therefore be counted on the neighbouring side. For a count of hot pixels the difference is immaterial; for a question of jurisdiction, use the official source.
Data sources
Archive built on July 31, 2026, covering 2020 to 2026.