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Samos fire, July 2016 Δυτικής Σάμου · Samos

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2016, 01:15 UTC

The fire started on 8 July 2016 in Samos, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 783 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 5th largest in North Aegean since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 11 in Greece in 2016, of 33.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.0 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
783ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
8 Jul 2016 – 9 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Jul
2016
Heat detections
57
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
307MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

89

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
49km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 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. Samos Δυτικής Σάμου where it started
    784 ha reached on 8 Jul
    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 land39 %
  • Agricultural areas39 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland21 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub0.9 %

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)
8 Jul 27.7 °C 49 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
9 Jul 27.3 °C 43 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jul after 28.1 °C 41 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Jul after 27.8 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Jul after 26.2 °C 58 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
13 Jul after 25.5 °C 70 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
14 Jul after 26.4 °C 67 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
15 Jul after 27.1 °C 69 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
16 Jul after 25.4 °C 82 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
17 Jul after 25.4 °C 72 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Jul after 26.4 °C 59 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
19 Jul after 28.3 °C 48 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 30

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jul 2016
After · 16 Jul 2016

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 12 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
6789101112
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 · 57Every 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 Samos fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 July 2016 and 9 July 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 783 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Samos (784 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.7 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 49 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.