Copernicus · Joint Research Centre (Europese Commissie)

International, relevant to the Netherlands

EFFIS wildfires (Copernicus)

The European Forest Fire Information System maps fires in natural areas from satellite imagery (MODIS, VIIRS and Sentinel-2). For each burnt area: date, area in hectares, municipality, the outline as a polygon, what was growing and how much lies in Natura 2000. For the Netherlands 53 areas since 2003, the largest near Deurne (April 2020, 649 hectares) and Elburg (April 2026, 421 hectares). Plus an open map service with the fire danger for the coming days (Fire Weather Index) and today's hotspots.

Climate and environment Earth observation SafetyOpenAPIMap layerEurope · burnt area (polygon)

Behind schedule · updated in August 2026 · checked 17:23

Screenshot of forest-fire.emergency.copernicus.eu

The largest wildfires in the Netherlands according to EFFIS: most Deurne, April 2020 (649 hectares), then Elburg, April 2026 and Ede, April 2014

The largest wildfires in the Netherlands according to EFFIS, 2003–2026, in hectares. Total: 3,049; the largest 12 of 53 categories are shown. Deurne, April 2020 is 21% of the total. All 53 areas EFFIS has mapped in the Netherlands since 2003, 3,049 hectares together. Municipality as EFFIS names it. Small fires are missing.

Source: Copernicus EMS, European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), JRC · opgehaald 25 oktober 2026Open the table Single block

Burnt natural land in the Netherlands mapped by EFFIS: 330 hectares in 2025, 80% more than in 2018

Burnt natural land in the Netherlands mapped by EFFIS, 2018 – 2025, in hectares. The highest point was 2020 (822).

Source: Copernicus EMS, European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), JRC · opgehaald 25 oktober 2026 · selection: Alleen volle jaren; een jaar zonder in kaart gebracht gebied staat op 0; 2026 tot nu toe: 9 gebieden, samen 693 hectare; Vanaf 2018; daarvoor alleen losse gebieden (2003, 2011, 2014, 2015); Alleen grotere branden; kleine heidebranden ontbrekenOpen the table Single block

What you can build with it1

MapWildfire map: today's risk, hotspots and burnt landOne map of the Netherlands per safety region with the fire service's phase, the fire danger for today and the coming days (EFFIS), the hotspots satellites saw this week (without factories) and the land that burnt this year, with KNMI drought data alongside.4 sourcesAdvanced

What can you do with it?3 ideas

Getting started

Wildfires on the map

Draw the outline of every burnt heath or forest on a map; the response contains the polygons as GeoJSON.

Getting started

Compare fire years

Add up the hectares per year: 2020 (Deurnese Peel) and 2026 stand out.

Advanced

Drought and fires

Put the fire dates next to the rainfall of the weeks before (KNMI) and next to the fire danger from the map service.

How to process it2 steps

Request the burnt areas
One call per country, no key. The response has count, next (next page) and results with per area firedate, area_ha, commune, province, shape (MultiPolygon) and land cover in percent.
```
https://api.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/rest/2/burntareas/current/?country=NL
```
Fire danger as a map layer
The WMS has layers for the Fire Weather Index and its components (mf010.fwi, .ffmc, .dmc, .dc, .isi, .bui), hotspots (viirs.hs, modis.hs) and burnt areas (effis.nrt.ba).
```
https://maps.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/effis?service=WMS&request=GetCapabilities
```

Interesting combinations

datum en plaats

From hotspot to burnt area

FIRMS sees the fire while it burns (375-metre points), EFFIS measures the burnt area afterwards.

Combine with NASA FIRMS (fires)

omtrek

Which nature burnt?

EFFIS already gives the share in Natura 2000; with the PDOK polygons you see which area it was.

Combine with Natura 2000 sites

datum en veiligheidsregio

Did the fire service raise the phase beforehand?

The wildfire risk per safety region is only shown as the current state on brandweer.nl; store it daily yourself to compare it with the fires.

Combine with Wildfire risk (fire service)

Similar sources

NASA FIRMS (fires)
Hotspots per satellite pass, not the burnt area.
GW
GWIS (Global Wildfire Information System) not in the index yet
The same system for the whole world.

What to watch out for

Only the larger fires
EFFIS mainly sees the larger fires; for the Netherlands the list runs from under a hectare to 649 hectares, but there are only 53 since 2003. Many small heath fires are missing, so this is not a complete fire statistic. A year without an area means: nothing mapped.
Earlier years sparse
Before 2018 there are only four areas for the Netherlands (2003, 2011, 2014, 2015). Since then there are more per year; whether that is because of more fires or better imagery, EFFIS does not say. Compare years with care.
Municipality and area are names
commune and province are names (Bergen (NH.), Veluwe), not CBS codes. Link via the outline to the municipal boundaries.

APIREST (JSON, Django REST Framework) + OGC WMS 1.1.1 · read 16 Oct 2026

StandardREST (JSON, Django REST Framework) + OGC WMS 1.1.1docs

Access no key

No key or account (tested). No robots.txt on the EFFIS hosts. tested

Size53

burnt areas in the Netherlands (2003–2026, together 3,049 ha); across Europe and surroundings 129,710 (16 Oct 2026) tested

Formats

jsonpngkmlgeotiff

Base URL

https://api.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/rest/2

Endpoints 3

GET/burntareas/current/Burnt areas (mapped from satellite images) with date, area, municipality, region, shape and land cover. Filter on country, date, area, geometry.
GEThttps://maps.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/effis?service=WMS&request=GetCapabilitiesMap layers: mf010.fwi (Fire Weather Index) and sub-indices ffmc, dc, isi, bui; hotspots viirs.hs and modis.hs; burnt areas modis.ba.poly(.today/.week/.month/.season/.<year>) and effis.nrt.ba.
GEThttps://maps.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/effis?service=WMS&request=GetMap&layers=mf010.fwi&time=JJJJ-MM-DD&…Map image of a layer for a day (ISO 8601 time dimension); formats png, jpeg, tiff, svg, kml, pdf.

Filtering tested

Django filters as query parameters: <field>, <field>__gte, __lte, __in, plus ordering.

=__gt__gte__lt__lte__inintersectscontains

Parameters 8

`country / country__in`	Country, e.g. NL; several with country__in=NL,BE.	tested
`firedate / firedate__gte / __gt / __lt / __lte`	Fire date; a full date-time is required (2025-01-01T00:00:00). A date only gives 400 'Enter a valid date/time.'	tested
`area_ha__gte / __gt / __lt / __lte`	Area in hectares (NL ≥ 100 ha: 7 areas).	tested
`lastupdate / lastupdate__gte …`	Last update of the area: handy to track changes.	from the description
`province`	Region as EFFIS names it (Veluwe, …), not a code.	tested
`intersects / contains / contained / covered`	Spatial filters (in the filter form; not tested by us).	from the description
`ordering`	Sort, e.g. ordering=-firedate (newest first) or firedate.	tested
`limit / offset`	Paging; the response has count, next and previous.	tested

Fields per burnt area 8

Name	Type	Meaning
`id`	tekst	Id van het verbrande gebied
`firedate`	datetime · lokale tijd met offset (+02:00)	Datum (en tijd) van de brand
`area_ha`	tekst (getal) · ha	Verbrand oppervlak
`commune / province / countryful`	tekst	Gemeente, regio en land (namen, geen codes)
`broadlea, conifer, mixed, othernatlc, agriareas, artifsurf …`	tekst (getal) · %	Aandeel per soort landbedekking (loofbos, naaldbos, gemengd, overige natuur, landbouw, bebouwd)
`percna2k`	tekst (getal) · %	Aandeel binnen Natura 2000
`shape / centroid / bbox`	tekst (GeoJSON als Python-dict) · WGS84	Vorm, middelpunt en omhullende
`lastupdate`	datetime	Laatste bijwerking van dit gebied

Limits and pitfalls

No documented limit. Without limit all 53 Dutch areas came in one page; for Europe (129,710) always paginate with limit and offset. tested
Numbers are strings ('12', '100.00000000') and shape, centroid and bbox are Python dicts as text (single quotes), not real GeoJSON: replace ' with " or use ast.literal_eval. tested
Unknown parameters are ignored (?year=2025 and ?page=2 simply returned all 53). Other paths such as /rest/2/ return 404. tested
The 'next' link starts with http:// instead of https://. tested
Not complete: before 2018 there are only four Dutch areas. Very small ones are included too (area_ha 0 and 1): filter on area yourself. experience
The WMS time dimension has a fixed default (2021-01-01) and no 'latest' date: always pass time. experience

Try it HTTP 200 · 9,151 ms · 16 Oct

https://api.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/rest/2/burntareas/current/?country=NL&ordering=-firedate&limit=3

{
  "count": 53,
  "next": "http://api.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/rest/2/burntareas/current/?country=NL&limit=3&offset=3&ordering=-firedate",
  "previous": null,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": 646790,
      "centroid": {
        "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": "…"
      },
      "bbox": [
        5.955175340086298,
        52.41402292977912
      ],
      "shape": {
        "type": "MultiPolygon",
        "coordinates": "…"
      },
      "country": "NL",
      "countryful": "Nederland",
      "province": "Veluwe",
      "commune": "Oldebroek",
      "firedate": "2026-08-25T13:01:00+02:00",
      "area_ha": 12,
      "broadlea": "0.00000000",
      "conifer": "0.00000000",
      "mixed": "0.00000000",
      "scleroph": "0.00000000"
    },
    {
      "id": 646789,
      "centroid": {
        "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": "…"
      },
      "bbox": [
        5.959945712697172,
        52.41666414077383
      ],

Shortened response, saved at harvest time. Click the URL for the real, current response.

Read from The browsable API itself: the filter form lists all filter fields · WMS capabilities: 52 layers (fire weather index, hotspots, burnt areas). Labels: from the description stated in what the api itself publishes. tested from our own small call. platform applies to every api on this platform, per its documentation. experience learned while building open data index.

How to fetch it

curl "https://api.effis.emergency.copernicus.eu/rest/2/burntareas/current/?country=NL"