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Delvinë fire, 12 August 2017 Delvinë

Out · last detection 15 Aug 2017, 00:37 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2017 in Delvinë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 339 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Vlorë since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 23 in Albania in 2017, of 83.

Burnt area
339ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
12 Aug 2017 – 15 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Aug
2017
Heat detections
48
in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
323MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12131415

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
46km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days 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. Delvinë where it started
    340 ha reached on 11 Aug
    1.0 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest31 %
  • Coniferous forest21 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub21 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
  • Other natural land11 %

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)
12 Aug 26.6 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Aug 23.4 °C 45 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Aug 25.2 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Aug 25.6 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Aug after 26.2 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 Aug after 26.6 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
18 Aug after 26.1 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Aug after 26.4 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Aug after 25.5 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
21 Aug after 23.8 °C 54 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
22 Aug after 23.4 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Aug after 22.9 °C 50 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
24 Aug after 23.7 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
25 Aug after 25.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2017
After · 22 Aug 2017

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 2017 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1040 µg/m³
9101112131415161718
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 · 48Every 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 Albania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Delvinë fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2017 and 15 August 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 339 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Delvinë (340 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.6 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (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: 128 · 112

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 128 · 112.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic). 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.