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Kos fire, July 2024 δημοτική ενότητα Κω · Kos

Out · last detection 2 Jul 2024, 00:18 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2024 in Kos, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 529 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in South Aegean since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 14 in Greece in 2024, of 42.

Burnt area
529ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
1 Jul 2024 – 2 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
1 Jul
2024
Heat detections
29
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jul 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul2 Jul

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

26°high
59km/h · peak gust
64%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 86 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Kos δημοτική ενότητα Κω 16,435 inhabitants where it started
    530 ha reached on 1 Jul
    1.8 %

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 scrub51 %
  • Other natural land37 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %

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 Jul 25.5 °C 64 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
2 Jul 25.3 °C 65 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Jul after 24.3 °C 74 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
4 Jul after 24.1 °C 86 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
5 Jul after 25.4 °C 70 % 53 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
6 Jul after 26.6 °C 65 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Jul after 26.9 °C 66 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Jul after 26.5 °C 70 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Jul after 27.5 °C 66 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Jul after 28.1 °C 65 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Jul after 26.6 °C 76 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Jul after 26.1 °C 79 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2024
After · 9 Jul 2024

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 4 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1064 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
293012345
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 · 29Every 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 Greece ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kos fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 July 2024 and 2 July 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 529 hectares (5.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kos (530 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.5 °C, humidity dropped to 64 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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

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 · 199.

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.