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Gjirokastër fire, August 2016 Gjirokastër

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2016, 12:25 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2016 in Gjirokastër, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Gjirokastër since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 8 in Albania in 2016, of 10.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
120ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
15 Aug 2016 – 16 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
15 Aug
2016
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
29MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 2016 · 29 MW · 9

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
29km/h · peak gust
49%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.3 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Gjirokastër where it started
    120 ha reached on 16 Aug
    0.1 %

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 land100 %

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)
15 Aug 23.6 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
16 Aug 24.4 °C 49 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Aug after 24.0 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Aug after 23.1 °C 63 % 26 km/h 0.8 mm Low 9
19 Aug after 24.4 °C 54 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
20 Aug after 25.3 °C 50 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Aug after 25.6 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
22 Aug after 25.4 °C 54 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
23 Aug after 21.4 °C 72 % 28 km/h 8.3 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Aug 2016
After · 23 Aug 2016

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 14 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1033 µg/m³
13141516171819
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 · 9Every 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 Gjirokastër fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 15 August 2016 and 16 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gjirokastër (120 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.4 °C, humidity dropped to 49 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
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.