Delvinë fire, 3 August 2020 Delvinë
The fire started on 3 August 2020 in Delvinë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 111 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 150th largest in Vlorë since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 51 in Albania in 2020, of 55.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 111ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 3 Aug 2020 – 4 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 3
- in a single hotspot: 21 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 34MW
- 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 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.5 mm on 5 Aug.
This area had burned before
20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Delvinë where it started112 ha reached on 3 Aug0.3 %
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 %
- Agricultural areas25 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland3.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 26.8 °C | 57 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 4 Aug | 26.6 °C | 55 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 5 Aug after | 23.7 °C | 71 % | 40 km/h | 14.5 mm | Very low 0 |
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 3 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 3Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,856 haSarandë24 July 2025 · 12 days · 1 km away
- 1,862 haGjirokastërJuly 2024 · 4 days · 12 km away
- 1,772 haDelvinë19 July 2024 · 5 days · 16 km away
- 4,153 haDelvinë8 July 2024 · 6 days · 19 km away
- 12,229 haSarandë6 August 2025 · 9 days · 22 km away
- 5,609 haGjirokastër8 August 2017 · 5 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Delvinë fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2020 and 4 August 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 111 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Delvinë (112 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.8 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
- 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
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.