Cephalonia fire, August 2026 Ληξουρίου · Cephalonia
The fire started on 2 August 2026 in Cephalonia, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 383 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 8th largest in Ionian Islands since 2016 (of 20 with a page). Number 16 in Greece in 2026, of 28.
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- Burnt area
- 383ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 1day
- 2 Aug 2026 – 2 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 28
- in a single hotspot: 83 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 545MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
2 Aug 2026 · 545 MW · 28
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2017, 169 ha in 2018, 4 ha in 2021.
- 169 ha Cephalonia fire, September 2018 270 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4 ha Cephalonia fire, July 2021 680 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Cephalonia fire, August 2017 134 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
318 ha reached on 2 Aug0.4 %
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 areas66 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub21 %
- Other natural land13 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %
- LIC THALASSIA ZONI APO ARGOSTOLI EOS ORMO MOUNTA GR2220007
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Aug | 32.0 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 43 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Aug after | 34.8 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 50 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Aug after | 35.0 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Aug after | 34.6 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 11 Aug after | 34.7 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Aug after | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 4 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 261 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 106: 7.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 28Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 270 haCephalonia ΛηξουρίουSeptember 2018 · 1 day · 1 km away
- 680 haCephalonia ΛηξουρίουJuly 2021 · 2 days · 3 km away
- 509 haZakynthos ΖάκυνθοςJuly 2017 · 1 day · 26 km away
- 1,592 haZakynthos Ζάκυνθος26 August 2017 · 3 days · 27 km away
- 312 haZakynthos Ζάκυνθος11 August 2017 · 5 days · 30 km away
- 197 haZakynthos ΖάκυνθοςSeptember 2016 · 2 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cephalonia fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (2 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 2 August 2026 (1 day from 2 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 383 hectares (3.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cephalonia (318 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 28 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.
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.