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Amari fire, August 2024 Αμάριου · Amari

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2024, 00:07 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2024 in Amari, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 980 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in Crete since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 8 in Greece in 2024, of 42.

Burnt area
980ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
7 Aug 2024 – 9 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
7 Aug
2024
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

789

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
55km/h · peak gust
23%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.

What happened to each town

  1. Amari Αμάριου where it started
    982 ha reached on 7 Aug
    3.8 %

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

What burned

  • Agricultural areas60 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub25 %
  • Other natural land15 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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 Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Aug 35.3 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 32.9 °C 25 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Aug 32.3 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Aug after 35.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Aug after 29.7 °C 39 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Aug after 33.8 °C 36 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug after 33.3 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Aug after 31.4 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Aug after 34.8 °C 25 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Aug after 34.6 °C 22 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Aug after 33.6 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Aug after 34.6 °C 23 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Aug after 31.2 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2024
After · 16 Aug 2024

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 10 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.25
56789101112
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 · 76Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Greece ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Amari fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 August 2024 and 9 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 980 hectares (9.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Amari (982 ha, 3.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
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

Satellite cross-check

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?

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.

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.