Corfu fire, July 2023 Νότιας Κέρκυρας · Corfu
The fire started on 23 July 2023 in Corfu, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,295 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Ionian Islands since 2016 (of 20 with a page). Number 10 in Greece in 2023, of 34.
- Burnt area
- 2,295ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 23 Jul 2023 – 26 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 216
- in a single hotspot: 182 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.0 mm on 5 Aug.
This area had burned before
6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 132 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
2,303 ha reached on 23 Jul3.7 %
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
- Other natural land72 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub21 %
- Agricultural areas7.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul | 34.0 °C | 28 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 24 Jul | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Jul | 33.8 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 Jul | 31.0 °C | 39 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Jul after | 26.9 °C | 39 % | 74 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 28 Jul after | 28.4 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Jul after | 29.5 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Jul after | 28.2 °C | 40 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Aug after | 28.5 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 45 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Aug after | 26.0 °C | 61 % | 55 km/h | 20.0 mm | Low 8 |
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 25 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 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 · 216Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Corfu fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2023 and 26 July 2023: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,295 hectares (23.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Corfu (2,303 ha, 3.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
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
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.