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Patras fire, July 2022 Δημοτική Ενότητα Πατρέων · Patras

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2022, 00:44 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2022 in Patras, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 182 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Western Greece since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 16 in Greece in 2022, of 29.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.8 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
182ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
16 Jul 2022 – 17 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Jul
2022
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
41MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul17 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1617

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Patras Δημοτική Ενότητα Πατρέων 8.6 km from the town where it started
    182 ha reached on 16 Jul
    0.4 %

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

  • Coniferous forest43 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland29 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub14 %
  • Agricultural areas13 %

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)
16 Jul 33.1 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
17 Jul 34.7 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Jul after 30.2 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jul after 28.3 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul after 28.9 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 Jul after 32.1 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Jul after 32.4 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Jul after 34.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jul after 33.5 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jul after 34.7 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Jul after 34.1 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Jul after 33.5 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2022
After · 24 Jul 2022

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 17 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
14151617181920
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 · 7Every 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 Patras fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2022 and 17 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 182 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Patras (182 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.6 km of Patras. 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 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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.