Ierapetra fire, July 2025 Ιεράπετρα · Ierapetra
The fire started on 2 July 2025 in Ierapetra, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 615 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Crete since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 17 in Greece in 2025, of 43.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 615ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 2 Jul 2025 – 3 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 66
- in a single hotspot: 110 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 370MW
- 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 31 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.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Athens boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
616 ha reached on 2 Jul1.2 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub43 %
- Agricultural areas33 %
- Coniferous forest18 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland5.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 71 %
- LIC OROS THRYPTIS KAI GYRO PERIOCHI GR4320005
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jul | 24.9 °C | 53 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Jul | 23.8 °C | 48 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Jul after | 24.8 °C | 57 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Jul after | 25.0 °C | 49 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 6 Jul after | 23.7 °C | 67 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 7 Jul after | 24.4 °C | 74 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 8 Jul after | 25.1 °C | 73 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 9 Jul after | 28.9 °C | 43 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 10 Jul after | 27.1 °C | 60 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 11 Jul after | 25.3 °C | 58 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Jul after | 26.8 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Jul after | 26.4 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
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 5 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily 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 · 66Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 275 haIerapetra ΙεράπετραApril 2024 · 1 day · 5 km away
- 139 haIerapetra ΙεράπετραJuly 2017 · 2 days · 14 km away
- 137 haIerapetra ΙεράπετραApril 2017 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 503 haSitia ΣητείαJuly 2018 · 1 day · 20 km away
- 217 haIerapetra ΙεράπετραApril 2016 · 1 day · 21 km away
- 441 haSitia ΣητείαJuly 2026 · 1 day · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ierapetra fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 2 July 2025 and 3 July 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 615 hectares (6.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ierapetra (616 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ierapetra and came within 11.1 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 24.9 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 · 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. 66 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 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.