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Platanisteia fire, July 2021 Πλατανίστεια · Platanisteia, Pissouri

Out · last detection 1 Jul 2021, 23:28 UTC

The fire started on 1 July 2021 in Platanisteia, Cyprus, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 115 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Limassol since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 5 in Cyprus in 2021, of 5.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Agios Therapon · 2025Kato Polemidia · 2024Apsiou · 2023Polemi · 2024

Burnt area
115ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
1 Jul 2021 – 2 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Jul
2021
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
73MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jul2 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1 Jul 2021 · 73 MW · 10

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
37km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 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. Platanisteia Πλατανίστεια 45 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the centre where it started
    113 ha reached on 1 Jul
    8.5 %
  2. Pissouri Πισσούρι 1,819 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre
    1 ha reached on 1 Jul
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Sclerophyllous scrub94 %
  • Agricultural areas6.1 %

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)
1 Jul 33.4 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Jul 32.8 °C 43 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jul after 29.6 °C 47 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Jul after 30.8 °C 43 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Jul after 29.4 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Jul after 29.4 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Jul after 29.8 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
8 Jul after 32.0 °C 46 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
9 Jul after 32.3 °C 46 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
10 Jul after 32.2 °C 53 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
11 Jul after 32.3 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Jul after 32.2 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jun 2021
After · 9 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 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1068 µg/m³
293012345
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 · 10Every 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 Platanisteia fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 July 2021 and 2 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 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Platanisteia (113 ha, 8.5 %); Pissouri (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Platanisteia and came within 2.1 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 10 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.