Burned area
satellite only106ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 26 January 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
EL · Greece ·
Kissamos fire, March 2018 Κίσσαμος · Kissamos
Out · last detection 22 Mar 2018, 00:31 UTC
The fire started on 22 March 2018 in Kissamos, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 106 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 25th largest in Crete since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 17 in Greece in 2018, of 17.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only1day
22 Mar 2018 to 22 Mar 2018: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 22 Mar 2018, 00:31 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only22 Mar 2018
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 22 Mar 2018
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only8
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 13 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 22 Mar 2018 – 22 Mar 2018
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only43MW
Total radiative power on 22 March 2018; hotspots that day: 8.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 22 Mar 2018
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model19.6FWI · moderate
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 21.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 22 Mar 2018, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model21.8°C · 31% RH
High of 21.8 °C and minimum humidity of 31% on 22 March 2018; gusts of 69 km/h on 22 March 2018.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 22 Mar 2018 – 22 Mar 2018
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 106 ha
- Dates
- 22 Mar 2018 – 22 Mar 2018
- Name
- Kissamos
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/kissamos-2018-03?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire kissamos-2018-03.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-03-22 | 8 | 43 | 21.8 | 12.1 | 31 | 23.1 | 68.8 | 0 | 19.6 | moderado | 1 |
| 2018-03-23 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 7.1 | 44 | 26 | 67 | 6.4 | 19 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 106ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 22 Mar 2018 – 22 Mar 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Mar
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 8
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 43MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
22 Mar22 Mar
How it evolved, day by day
22 Mar 2018 · 43 MW · 8
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
22°high
69km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity
It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.4 mm on 23 Mar.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
106 ha reached on 22 Mar0.3 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub96 %
- Agricultural areas3.7 %
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)
Started with Strong wind: 52 % of the area in Greece
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Mar | 21.8 °C | 31 % | 69 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 23 Mar after | 14.0 °C | 44 % | 67 km/h | 6.4 mm | Moderate 19 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 19.6, a minimum humidity of 31% and 21 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 4.
FWI at the start
19.6
Minimum humidity
31 %
Days without rain
21
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Kissamos fire, March 2018
106 ha
1 day
FWI 19.6
Min. humidity 31 %
East Mani fire, August 2020
1,894 ha
2 days
FWI 20.0
Min. humidity 32 %
175 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ierapetra fire, April 2017
137 ha
2 days
FWI 15.5
Min. humidity 25 %
192 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.6 mm on 22 Apr.
Kantanos-Selino fire, July 2018
115 ha
2 days
FWI 31.5
Min. humidity 27 %
19 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ermionida fire, October 2017
251 ha
2 days
FWI 26.4
Min. humidity 39 %
228 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.4 mm on 25 Oct.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 4. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
6.4 mmfirst rain
23 Marthe day after it ended
69km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 22 Mar, and on 23 Mar 6.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 15 Mar 2018
After · 29 Mar 2018
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 22 March 2018 the air beside the fire reached 131 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak131 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10304 µg/m³
WHO 15
20 Mar22 Mar24 Mar
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 · 8Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 108 haKissamos ΚίσσαμοςMay 2016 · 2 days · 9 km away
- 374 haKantanos-Selino Καντάνου - ΣελίνουAugust 2020 · 3 days · 11 km away
- 197 haPlatanias ΠλατανιάςJuly 2018 · 2 days · 15 km away
- 115 haKantanos-Selino Καντάνου - ΣελίνουJuly 2018 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 741 haKantanos-Selino Καντάνου - ΣελίνουJuly 2025 · 3 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kissamos fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 22 March 2018 and 22 March 2018: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 106 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kissamos (106 ha, 0.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Kissamos and came within 9.0 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 21.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 69 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- 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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 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.