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Gjirokastër fire, July 2022 Gjirokastër, Delvinë

Out · last measured on 1 Aug 2022

The fire started on 30 July 2022 in Gjirokastër, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,633 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Gjirokastër since 2016 (of 40 with a page). The largest in Albania in 2022, of 50.

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
1,633ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
30 Jul 2022 – 1 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 Jul
2022
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
44km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 11 Aug.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,554 ha in 2017, 35 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Gjirokastër where it started
    1,227 ha
    1.1 %
  2. Delvinë
    407 ha
    1.1 %

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 land69 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub14 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.1 %

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)
30 Jul 31.0 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Jul 30.2 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Aug 29.3 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 30.1 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Aug after 29.7 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 42
4 Aug after 29.6 °C 24 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Aug after 29.7 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Aug after 29.4 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Aug after 30.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Aug after 31.0 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug after 29.5 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Aug after 29.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Aug after 27.9 °C 32 % 42 km/h 1.3 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jul 2022
After · 8 Aug 2022

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 2 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
282930311234
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 Albania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gjirokastër fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2022 and 1 August 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,633 hectares (16.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gjirokastër (1,227 ha, 1.1 %); Delvinë (407 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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

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.