The fire on Dinara is still not under control, the terrain is inaccessible, and firefighters had to retreat during the day. The Croatian Army is also involved in the extinguishing efforts.
The fire on Dinara is still active and not under control, with the extremely inaccessible mountain terrain hampering firefighting efforts. Darko Dukić, commander of the Šibenik-Knin County Firefighting Association, described the situation at the fire site for N1 and estimated that only heavy rain can stop such fires.
During the day, Dukić was positioned above the Crvena Zemlja training ground toward Brezovac, where strong winds are literally spreading the fire through the pine forest. "Firefighting forces and Croatian Army forces, specially organized units that are helping us at this moment, are here. With two Fireboss aircraft, we expect the Canadairs to rejoin the firefighting efforts. Simply put, we cannot stop the further spread of this fire," he said.
In the Brezovac area, 25 firefighters and 25 members of the Croatian Army's specially organized units are currently operating. Dukić emphasized that they had to retreat from the area two to three times during the day because the situation is very difficult to keep under control. "Today, we also had to retreat from this area two to three times, so it's a very, very difficult situation to even keep the fire contained in the Brezovac area," he added.
The commander explained why the firefighting is so challenging: "Even if we had a thousand firefighters in the lower part of Podinarje, it would be literally impossible to do anything else, because the terrain is extremely steep and inaccessible. It's rocky, and then we come across cliffs of 30 to 50 meters, so we're simply unable to do anything from any side."
He added that there are only two mountain trails in the upper area, and under normal conditions, it takes two hours to reach them from the nearest road. In fire conditions, this is extremely difficult, he said. He stressed that the terrain practically prevents larger ground operations.
The fire started around August 10, 2026, in the area around Bosansko Grahovo. Dukić estimates that the burned area is certainly over 4,000 hectares, of which 1,500 hectares are on the Croatian side.
The fire that spread from the Uništa area in Bosnia and Herzegovina toward Croatia was successfully defended yesterday afternoon, and that part is being rehabilitated today, as is the entire Podinarje area. Dukić noted that fortunately, residential buildings near the fire are currently not threatened.
Rain is forecast for the next day or two, and Dukić hopes it will help, although recent experience was disappointing: "We had rain forecast a few days ago, but in this area there was so much thunder, so many clouds that literally reached the ground. We couldn't even see ourselves, and not a single drop of rain fell."
Nevertheless, he maintains his assessment that heavy precipitation is the only way to permanently extinguish the fire in the mountains: "We hope that this latest cyclone, which is forecast, will help in any way, because honestly, such fires, especially fires in the mountains, can only be extinguished by rain."
