How long did the Agios Vasileios fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2016 and 31 July 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,474 hectares (14.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Agios Vasileios (1,437 ha, 4.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Greece (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

EL · Greece · 2016-07-30 → 2016-07-31

Agios Vasileios fire, July 2016 Άγιος Βασίλειος · Agios Vasileios

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2016, 01:03 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2016 in Agios Vasileios, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,474 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Crete since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 7 in Greece in 2016, of 33.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Agios Vasileios · 2022 Agios Vasileios · 2026 Agios Vasileios · 2024 Amari · 2024

Burnt area: 1,474ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 30 Jul 2016 – 31 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 30 Jul; 2016
Heat detections: 84; in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start: 53; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 475MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul31 Jul

Play back 31 Jul 2016

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jul 31 Jul

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

29°high

65km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.9% of the area of London (15 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Agios Vasileios Άγιος Βασίλειος where it started

1,437 ha reached on 30 Jul

4.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Agricultural areas51 %
Other natural land48 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
30 Jul	29.3 °C	29 %	65 km/h	Extreme 53
31 Jul	28.5 °C	34 %	65 km/h	Extreme 52
1 Aug after	29.9 °C	35 %	40 km/h	Very high 40
2 Aug after	31.7 °C	32 %	37 km/h	High 35
3 Aug after	30.7 °C	39 %	34 km/h	High 36
4 Aug after	28.5 °C	43 %	60 km/h	Very high 45
5 Aug after	27.2 °C	55 %	49 km/h	High 36
6 Aug after	29.2 °C	41 %	40 km/h	High 31
7 Aug after	28.9 °C	46 %	43 km/h	High 34
8 Aug after	30.0 °C	38 %	31 km/h	High 31
9 Aug after	27.7 °C	54 %	40 km/h	High 30
10 Aug after	28.2 °C	49 %	45 km/h	High 33

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 23 Jul 2016

After · 7 Aug 2016

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 30 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1043 µg/m³

WHO 15

28293031123

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 84Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Greece ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Agios Vasileios fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2016 and 31 July 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,474 hectares (14.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Agios Vasileios (1,437 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Greece (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112 · 199 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112 · 199.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 84 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned