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Melini fire, July 2021 Μελίνη · Ora, Eptagoneia, Melini

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2021, 00:31 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2021 in Melini, Cyprus, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,627 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 12 municipalities.

The largest in Cyprus in 2021, of 5.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.7 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
4,627ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
3 Jul 2021 – 4 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
12
municipalities
Started on
3 Jul
2021
Heat detections
55
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
97MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jul 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

34

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
63km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 6 Jul.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 69 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Ora Ορά 206 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    984 ha reached on 3 Jul
    63 %
  2. Eptagoneia Επταγώνια 353 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    938 ha reached on 3 Jul
    76 %
  3. Melini Μελίνη 59 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town where it started
    780 ha reached on 4 Jul
    98 %
  4. Odou Οδού 213 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town
    632 ha reached on 3 Jul
    56 %
  5. Agloi Vavatsinias Αγίοι Βαβατσινιάς 131 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    523 ha reached on 3 Jul
    33 %
  6. Arakapas Αρακαπάς 307 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town
    418 ha reached on 3 Jul
    34 %
  7. Akapnou Ακαπνού 20 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    163 ha reached on 3 Jul
    25 %
  8. Vavatsinia Βαβατσινιά 81 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    150 ha reached on 3 Jul
    10 %
  9. Lageia Λάγια 28 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    25 ha
    2.2 %
  10. Dierona Διερώνα 192 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    20 ha
    0.8 %
  11. Sykopetra Συκόπετρα 120 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    3 ha
    0.2 %
  12. Farmakas Φαρμακάς 480 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town
    2 ha
    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

  • Agricultural areas42 %
  • Coniferous forest34 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub24 %
  • Artificial surfaces0.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 1 %

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 3 July 2021 and burned 4,450 ha (the satellite measured 4,627 ha).

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)
3 Jul 34.5 °C 19 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Jul 31.6 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 31
5 Jul after 29.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Jul after 30.2 °C 39 % 38 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2021
After · 11 Jul 2021

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 2 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1061 µg/m³
1234567
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 · 55Every 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 Melini fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 3 July 2021 and 4 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,627 hectares (46.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 12 municipalities: Ora (984 ha, 63 %); Eptagoneia (938 ha, 76 %); Melini (780 ha, 98 %); Odou (632 ha, 56 %); Agloi Vavatsinias (523 ha, 33 %); Arakapas (418 ha, 34 %); Akapnou (163 ha, 25 %); Vavatsinia (150 ha, 10 %); Lageia (25 ha, 2.2 %); Dierona (20 ha, 0.8 %); Sykopetra (3 ha, 0.2 %); Farmakas (2 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Melini. 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.