Only the Dinara is still burning. Gračac is out, Omiš and Primošten are contained. The new one hit a holiday village on 20 August and burned 100 hectares of olive groves in hours. What that means for this week, and why your phone may buzz in German.
Checked: 23 August 2026
Two days ago four fires were burning in Croatia. This morning the state fire service lists one that is still active, and it is not on the coast. The rest are contained or out. In between, one new fire started, and it started in a place people were on holiday in.
The state of every fire this morning
| Where | Status | Area |
|---|---|---|
| Dinara (Šibenik-Knin) | Still active since 14 Aug | not yet assessed |
| Primošten Burnji (Šibenik-Knin) | Contained 21 Aug, 19:20 | about 100 ha |
| Omiš / Lokva Rogoznica (Split-Dalmatia) | Contained 21 Aug, 08:00 | about 1,000 ha |
| Pelješac (Dubrovnik-Neretva) | Under control, mopping up | about 500 ha |
| Otrić near Gračac (Zadar) | Out since 20 Aug, 19:02 | 12 ha |
One word in that table decides what you can do: contained. In Croatian reporting a fire moves through four stages, and travellers regularly read the second as the fourth. Active means it is spreading. Contained means it is ringed and no longer growing, but still burning inside the ring. Under control means the flames are down and crews are working the ground. Out means out. A contained fire still has aircraft over it and closed roads under it.
Primošten: fifteen metres from the houses
The fire above Primošten Burnji started on 20 August at 13:49 and ran through olive groves, which make up most of the hundred hectares it took. Four Canadairs worked it. According to a resident quoted in the local press, the wind turned and a wall of flame came within fifteen metres of the houses before the aircraft arrived; the county fire commander confirms no house was lost. That is the difference between a bad day and a catastrophe, and it took four aircraft to make it.
Your phone will warn you, in your language
During the Primošten fire the authorities triggered SRUUK, the national emergency alert. Every phone in the affected cells gets a message with instructions, and it goes out in Croatian, German and English. You do not sign up and you cannot miss it: it overrides silent mode. If it fires, follow it, and do not drive towards the smoke to look. The single most useful thing to know about wildfire season in Croatia is that the warning finds you.
Weather today, and what it changes
- Kvarner and the Velebit Channel: yellow warning for northeasterly bura, gusts of 65 to 75 km/h. Exposed ferry crossings and the coastal road get uncomfortable.
- Dubrovnik region: yellow warning for heat, above 32 degrees by day and above 26 at night. Nights like that do not let the body recover.
- Split, Šibenik and Zadar: no warnings today. That is the first quiet day on this stretch of coast in over a week.
What this means for a trip this week
The coast is open, the ferries run, and no holiday town is closed. What changes is on foot: burnt slopes stay off limits while crews work them, so a hike above Omiš or through the pine woods on Pelješac can be cancelled on the day. The Dinara is the one place to check before setting out, because the route to Croatia's highest peak runs across it. Around Primošten the smell will hang in the air for days after the last flame, which is unpleasant and not dangerous.
Read on
- 3 minThe fire rules, and the fines behind them
No open fire, no cigarette out of a car window, no grill outside a marked spot. What counts as a marked spot, and what it costs when it is not.
- 8 minOmiš after the fire
The town is open and the gorge is intact. What the thousand hectares above it changed, and what a visit looks like now.
- 112Bura, heat and the sea: the whole picture
Which coasts the bura hits hardest, where it barely reaches, and the numbers behind the warning colours.
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