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Marathounta fire, July 2025 Μαραθούντα · Marathounta, Agia Varvara Pafou, Episkopi Pafou

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2025, 23:05 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2025 in Marathounta, Cyprus, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 335 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Paphos since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 3 in Cyprus in 2025, of 5.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.7 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
335ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
23 Jul 2025 – 25 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2025
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
37MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jul 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul25 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2324

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 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. Marathounta Μαραθούντα 309 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the town where it started
    153 ha reached on 23 Jul
    12 %
  2. Agia Varvara Pafou Αγία Βαρβάρα 172 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    83 ha
    11 %
  3. Episkopi Pafou Επισκοπή Πάφου 220 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the town
    75 ha
    5.6 %
  4. Anarita Αναρίτα 876 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town
    24 ha
    1.6 %

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 land43 %
  • Agricultural areas35 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub23 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 73 %

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.

Official record

According to Τμήμα Δασών, this fire started on 23 July 2025 and burned 215 ha (the satellite measured 335 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Τμήμα Δασών (Departamento de Bosques de Chipre), catálogo de incendios forestales. This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.

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)
23 Jul 36.1 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jul 34.8 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul 37.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul after 37.0 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Jul after 35.1 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jul after 33.0 °C 58 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
29 Jul after 31.6 °C 57 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Jul after 29.8 °C 60 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Jul after 29.1 °C 66 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Aug after 30.0 °C 68 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
2 Aug after 29.7 °C 63 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Aug after 29.8 °C 58 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
4 Aug after 30.3 °C 61 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2025
After · 1 Aug 2025

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 26 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1029 µg/m³
Optical depth0.31
2122232425262728
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 · 4Every 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 Cyprus ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Marathounta fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2025 and 25 July 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 335 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Marathounta (153 ha, 12 %); Agia Varvara Pafou (83 ha, 11 %); Episkopi Pafou (75 ha, 5.6 %); Anarita (24 ha, 1.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.3 km of Agia Varvara Pafou. 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 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very 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.