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Kormakitis fire, May 2020 Κορμακίτης · Kormakitis

Out · last measured on 20 May 2020

The fire started on 17 May 2020 in Kormakitis, Cyprus, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 350 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 3 in Cyprus in 2020, of 8.

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
350ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
17 May 2020 – 20 May 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 May
2020
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

37°high
36km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Kormakitis Κορμακίτης 1,257 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    350 ha
    7.0 %

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

  • Agricultural areas74 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub26 %
  • Other natural land0.6 %

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)
17 May 36.3 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 May 36.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 May 36.9 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
20 May 37.2 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 May after 34.2 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 May after 25.9 °C 56 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 May after 25.4 °C 36 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
24 May after 23.3 °C 31 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 May after 26.1 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 May after 27.1 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 May after 25.0 °C 52 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
28 May after 22.7 °C 53 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 May after 22.8 °C 47 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 May after 23.0 °C 55 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 May 2020
After · 27 May 2020

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 17 May 2020 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM1063 µg/m³
151617181920212223
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 Cyprus ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kormakitis fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 May 2020 and 20 May 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 350 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kormakitis (350 ha, 7.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Kormakitis. 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 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.