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Farmakas fire, June 2024 Φαρμακάς · Farmakas, Gourri

Out · last measured on 20 Jun 2024

The fire started on 20 June 2024 in Farmakas, Cyprus, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 255 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 4 in Cyprus in 2024, of 7.

Compare with…

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We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
255ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
20 Jun 2024 – 20 Jun 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
20 Jun
2024
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Natura 2000
44%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

35°high
30km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 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. Farmakas Φαρμακάς 480 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre where it started
    214 ha
    13 %
  2. Gourri Γούρρη 196 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the centre
    42 ha
    2.4 %

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 areas43 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub33 %
  • Coniferous forest24 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 44 %

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.

Official record

According to Τμήμα Δασών, this fire started on 15 June 2024 and burned 240 ha (the satellite measured 255 ha).

Τμήμα Δασών (Departamento de Bosques de Chipre), catálogo de incendios forestales. This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.

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)
20 Jun 35.0 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Jun after 33.6 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Jun after 31.5 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
23 Jun after 34.8 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jun after 36.3 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Jun after 36.4 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jun after 35.8 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jun after 35.6 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jun after 36.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jun after 33.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jun after 33.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jun 2024
After · 27 Jun 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 21 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
181920212223
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cyprus ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Farmakas fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 June 2024 and 20 June 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 255 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Farmakas (214 ha, 13 %); Gourri (42 ha, 2.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Farmakas and came within 1.3 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 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cyprus (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 · 1407 · 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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 · 1407.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with Τμήμα Δασών: 240 official ha against 255 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported). 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.