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Chios fire, July 2024 Δημοτική Ενότητα ΧΙΟΥ · Chios

Out · last detection 2 Jul 2024, 00:18 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2024 in Chios, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,039 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in North Aegean since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 7 in Greece in 2024, of 42.

Burnt area
1,039ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
1 Jul 2024 – 2 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Jul
2024
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 201 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jul 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul2 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
46km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.0 mm on 4 Jul.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 36 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Chios Δημοτική Ενότητα ΧΙΟΥ 24,964 inhabitants where it started
    1,033 ha reached on 1 Jul
    1.2 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland48 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub33 %
  • Other natural land14 %
  • Agricultural areas4.1 %

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)
1 Jul 30.8 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jul 34.0 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Jul after 27.9 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Jul after 27.8 °C 48 % 35 km/h 6.0 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2024
After · 9 Jul 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 4 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1057 µg/m³
Optical depth0.52
293012345
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 · 96Every 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 Chios fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 July 2024 and 2 July 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,039 hectares (10.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Chios (1,033 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.