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Kissousa fire, August 2019 Κισσούσα · Kissousa, Vouni, Pachna

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2019, 11:26 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2019 in Kissousa, Cyprus, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 268 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Limassol since 2016 (of 15 with a page). The largest in Cyprus in 2019, of 3.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.1 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
268ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
12 Aug 2019 – 12 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
12 Aug
2019
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
151MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
37km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 19 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. Kissousa Κισσούσα 6 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town where it started
    131 ha reached on 12 Aug
    47 %
  2. Vouni Βουνί 149 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town
    112 ha
    7.7 %
  3. Pachna Πάχνα 865 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town
    17 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.6 %
  4. Malia Μαλιά 64 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    9 ha reached on 12 Aug
    0.7 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub74 %
  • Agricultural areas26 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 69 %

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.

Official record

According to Τμήμα Δασών, this fire started on 12 August 2019 and burned 363 ha (the satellite measured 268 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Τμήμα Δασών (Departamento de Bosques de Chipre), catálogo de incendios forestales. This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.

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)
12 Aug 30.6 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Aug after 29.1 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Aug after 26.4 °C 62 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
15 Aug after 26.1 °C 60 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Aug after 27.4 °C 59 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
17 Aug after 26.7 °C 62 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
18 Aug after 27.4 °C 63 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Aug after 26.9 °C 62 % 28 km/h 1.7 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2019
After · 19 Aug 2019

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 15 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
101112131415
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 · 11Every 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 Cyprus ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kissousa fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2019 and 12 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 268 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Kissousa (131 ha, 47 %); Vouni (112 ha, 7.7 %); Pachna (17 ha, 0.6 %); Malia (9 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Kissousa. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cyprus (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 · 1407

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 112 · 1407.

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-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported). 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.