Skip to content
worldfires
en
EL · Greece · →

Farsala fire, August 2019 Φάρσαλα · Farsala

Out · last measured on 22 Aug 2019

The fire started on 22 August 2019 in Farsala, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 119 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Thessaly since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 18 in Greece in 2019, of 19.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Farsala · 2023Almyros · 2023Farsala · 2023Kileler · 2021

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
119ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
22 Aug 2019 – 22 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
22 Aug
2019
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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. Farsala Φάρσαλα 10,582 inhabitants where it started
    120 ha
    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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub100 %

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 Aug 31.8 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug after 31.7 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Aug after 31.2 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Aug after 31.2 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Aug after 31.8 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Aug after 30.6 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Aug after 29.7 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Aug after 29.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Aug after 29.7 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Aug after 29.1 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Sept after 29.0 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Aug 2019
After · 29 Aug 2019

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 25 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1026 µg/m³
202122232425
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 Greece ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Farsala fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 August 2019 and 22 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Farsala (120 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
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.

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.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • 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 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.