Dirfys-Messapia fire, August 2018 Διρφύων - Μεσσαπίων · Dirfys-Messapia
The fire started on 12 August 2018 in Dirfys-Messapia, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 565 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 20th largest in Central Greece since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 5 in Greece in 2018, of 17.
The power measured by the satellite is low (3.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 565ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 12 Aug 2018 – 13 Aug 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 12 Aug
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 8
- in a single hotspot: 3 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 17MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
13 Aug 2018 · 17 MW · 8
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 13 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.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Athens boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
566 ha reached on 13 Aug0.7 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Agricultural areas42 %
- Coniferous forest42 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland10 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub6.0 %
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 | 26.4 °C | 43 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Aug | 26.9 °C | 44 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 42 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Aug after | 28.5 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 44 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 17 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 40 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 19 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 46 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 49 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 21 Aug after | 26.3 °C | 45 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Aug after | 26.9 °C | 51 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 23 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 53 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
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 16 August 2018 the air beside the fire reached 14 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 · 8Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,889 haDirfys-Messapia Διρφύων - ΜεσσαπίωνAugust 2019 · 4 days · 3 km away
- 1,405 haDirfys-Messapia Διρφύων - ΜεσσαπίωνJuly 2025 · 2 days · 12 km away
- 918 haChalcis ΧαλκιδέωνJuly 2024 · 2 days · 17 km away
- 2,604 haMantoudi-Limni-Agia Anna Μαντουδίου - Λίμνης - Αγίας ΆνναςJuly 2016 · 4 days · 27 km away
- 51,881 haEvia Μαντουδίου - Λίμνης - Αγίας ΆνναςAugust 2021 · 9 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dirfys-Messapia fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2018 and 13 August 2018: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 565 hectares (5.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dirfys-Messapia (566 ha, 0.7 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Dirfys-Messapia and came within 19.3 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 8 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.