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Lesbos fire, 2 November 2019 Μυτιλήνης · Lesbos

Out · last detection 3 Nov 2019, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 2 November 2019 in Lesbos, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 102 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 19 in Greece in 2019, of 19.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.6 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
102ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
2 Nov 2019 – 3 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
2 Nov
2019
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
16MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Nov3 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

3

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

The weather it burned in

20°high
43km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Lesbos Μυτιλήνης where it started
    102 ha reached on 3 Nov
    0.1 %

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

  • Other natural land99 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub1.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
2 Nov 18.5 °C 48 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
3 Nov 19.8 °C 54 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
4 Nov after 21.1 °C 73 % 63 km/h 3.4 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Oct 2019
After · 10 Nov 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 31 October 2019 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1041 µg/m³
31123456
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 · 2Every 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 Lesbos fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 November 2019 and 3 November 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 102 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lesbos (102 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 19.8 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
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.