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Corinth fire, July 2020 Δήμος Κορινθίων · Corinth

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2020, 01:21 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2020 in Corinth, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,549 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Peloponnese since 2016 (of 39 with a page). The largest in Greece in 2020, of 22.

Burnt area
3,549ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
22 Jul 2020 – 24 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Jul
2020
Heat detections
146
in a single hotspot: 172 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jul 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul24 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

22232425

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
57km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 2 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Corinth Δήμος Κορινθίων 35,650 inhabitants where it started
    3,555 ha reached on 22 Jul
    5.9 %

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

  • Coniferous forest39 %
  • Agricultural areas33 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland23 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub3.9 %

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)
22 Jul 30.1 °C 33 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jul 31.1 °C 24 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
24 Jul 32.0 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jul after 33.6 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jul after 33.3 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jul after 33.3 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 32.5 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jul after 33.2 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Jul after 34.3 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Jul after 35.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Aug after 37.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 46
2 Aug after 29.6 °C 47 % 42 km/h 1.1 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2020
After · 31 Jul 2020

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 23 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
202122232425262728
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 · 146Every 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 Corinth fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 July 2020 and 24 July 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,549 hectares (35.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Corinth (3,555 ha, 5.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
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.