Konitsa fire, August 2026 Κόνιτσα · Konitsa
The fire started on 31 August 2026 in Konitsa, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 541 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 4th largest in Epirus since 2016 (of 19 with a page). Number 11 in Greece in 2026, of 28.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 541ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 15days
- 31 Aug 2026 – 14 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 61
- in a single hotspot: 123 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 48MW
- 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 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 9 Sept.
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
-
541 ha reached on 31 Aug0.6 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland50 %
- Coniferous forest41 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub8.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 74 %
- LIC ETHNIKOS DRYMOS VIKOU - AOOU GR2130001
- ZEPA OROS TYMFI (GKAMILA) GR2130009
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Sept | 34.1 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Sept | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Sept | 29.8 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 24 |
| 4 Sept | 30.4 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Sept | 32.8 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Sept | 35.3 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Sept | 33.3 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Sept | 31.2 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Sept | 29.9 °C | 37 % | 22 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
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 31 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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 · 61Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Konitsa fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (1 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 14 September 2026 (15 days from 31 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 541 hectares (5.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Konitsa (541 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 61 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.