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Dramas fire, September 2017 Δράμας · Dramas

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2017, 00:05 UTC

The fire started on 22 September 2017 in Dramas, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 201 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 20th largest in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 18 in Greece in 2017, of 32.

Burnt area
201ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
22 Sept 2017 – 22 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Sept
2017
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
151MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2223

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
33km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 35.4 mm on 26 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Dramas Δράμας where it started
    201 ha reached on 22 Sept
    0.2 %

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 land62 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland38 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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 Sept 20.9 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
23 Sept after 22.2 °C 37 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
24 Sept after 24.3 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
25 Sept after 25.1 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.4 mm High 21
26 Sept after 18.5 °C 69 % 36 km/h 35.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Sept 2017
After · 29 Sept 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 20 September 2017 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1033 µg/m³
20212223242526
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 · 5Every 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 Dramas fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 September 2017 and 22 September 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 201 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dramas (201 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 20.9 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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

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.