Gjirokastër fire, September 2020 Gjirokastër
The fire started on 3 September 2020 in Gjirokastër, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 306 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Gjirokastër since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 15 in Albania in 2020, of 55.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.6 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
- 306ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 3 Sept 2020 – 4 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 8
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 30MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 22 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
-
Gjirokastër where it started307 ha reached on 3 Sept0.3 %
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
- Other natural land96 %
- Broadleaved forest3.5 %
- Coniferous forest1.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Sept | 23.3 °C | 38 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 4 Sept | 23.3 °C | 40 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Sept after | 23.0 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 6 Sept after | 22.9 °C | 46 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 7 Sept after | 23.6 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Sept after | 25.5 °C | 47 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 9 Sept after | 25.6 °C | 43 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 10 Sept after | 24.9 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 11 Sept after | 24.3 °C | 53 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Sept after | 24.1 °C | 52 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Sept after | 25.0 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 Sept after | 24.4 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 6 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 13 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
- 1,862 haGjirokastërJuly 2024 · 4 days · 1 km away
- 1,772 haDelvinë19 July 2024 · 5 days · 10 km away
- 9,856 haSarandë24 July 2025 · 13 days · 14 km away
- 4,153 haDelvinë8 July 2024 · 6 days · 15 km away
- 5,609 haGjirokastër8 August 2017 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 12,229 haSarandë6 August 2025 · 9 days · 21 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gjirokastër fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 September 2020 and 4 September 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 306 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Gjirokastër (307 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 23.3 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
- 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 · 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 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.