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Lesbos fire, November 2020 Μυτιλήνης · Lesbos

Out · last detection 20 Nov 2020, 10:49 UTC

The fire started on 20 November 2020 in Lesbos, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 110 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 21 in Greece in 2020, of 22.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.3 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
110ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
20 Nov 2020 – 20 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Nov
2020
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start
11
Low · FWI index
Energy released
3MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Nov20 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

20

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
61km/h · peak gust
52%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 30 Nov.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 57 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Lesbos Μυτιλήνης where it started
    110 ha reached on 20 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 land93 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub7.2 %

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)
20 Nov 15.2 °C 52 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Low 11
21 Nov after 14.6 °C 57 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
22 Nov after 14.7 °C 57 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
23 Nov after 14.7 °C 61 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
24 Nov after 14.2 °C 60 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
25 Nov after 14.6 °C 55 % 73 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Nov after 15.7 °C 51 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
27 Nov after 15.5 °C 56 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
28 Nov after 15.4 °C 67 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
29 Nov after 16.5 °C 70 % 44 km/h 0.5 mm Low 7
30 Nov after 16.2 °C 75 % 48 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Nov 2020
After · 27 Nov 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 18 November 2020 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1048 µg/m³
181920212223
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 · 1Every 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 20 November 2020 and 20 November 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 110 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lesbos (110 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 15.2 °C, humidity dropped to 52 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, 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.