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Delvinë fire, 8 July 2024 Gjirokastër, Delvinë

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2024, 11:09 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2024 in Delvinë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,153 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Vlorë since 2016 (of 160 with a page). The largest in Albania in 2024, of 70.

Burnt area
4,153ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
8 Jul 2024 – 13 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
8 Jul
2024
Heat detections
36
in a single hotspot: 110 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
606MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jul 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul13 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

89

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
33km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 18 Jul.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,314 ha in 2017, 47 ha in 2018, 606 ha in 2019, 129 ha in 2021, 1,640 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,071 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Gjirokastër
    2,366 ha reached on 8 Jul
    2.0 %
  2. Delvinë where it started
    1,790 ha reached on 8 Jul
    5.0 %

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

  • Other natural land47 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland27 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub18 %
  • Agricultural areas6.4 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.4 %

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)
8 Jul 32.9 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Jul 32.8 °C 31 % 23 km/h 2.6 mm Low 11
10 Jul 33.5 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 23
11 Jul 32.2 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm High 24
12 Jul 31.8 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Jul 32.2 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
14 Jul after 32.0 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Jul after 33.8 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Jul after 32.5 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Jul after 32.8 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm High 23
18 Jul after 33.3 °C 35 % 35 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2024
After · 20 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 13 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
PM1034 µg/m³
Optical depth0.39
678910111213141516
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 · 36Every 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 8 July 2024 and 13 July 2024: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,153 hectares (41.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gjirokastër (2,366 ha, 2.0 %); Delvinë (1,790 ha, 5.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 33 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.