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Sarandë fire, September 2018 Sarandë, Delvinë

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2018, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 11 September 2018 in Sarandë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 115 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 141th largest in Vlorë since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 5 in Albania in 2018, of 6.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.2 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: Sarandë · 2025Gjirokastër · 2024Delvinë · 2024Sarandë · 2025

Burnt area
115ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
11 Sept 2018 – 13 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
11 Sept
2018
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
4MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Sept13 Sept
13 Sept 2018

How it evolved, day by day

11 Sept 2018 · 1 MW · 1 12 Sept 2018 · 4 MW · 1 13 Sept 2018 · 6 MW · 1
11 Sept 12 Sept 13 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
31km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 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. Sarandë where it started
    114 ha reached on 11 Sept
    0.1 %
  2. Delvinë
    0 ha
    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

  • Other natural land86 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland11 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub2.6 %

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)
12 Sept 23.7 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
13 Sept 23.1 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
14 Sept after 23.0 °C 48 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Sept after 22.9 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
16 Sept after 24.3 °C 50 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
17 Sept after 24.7 °C 46 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
18 Sept after 23.7 °C 52 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Sept after 23.9 °C 54 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
20 Sept after 23.4 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
21 Sept after 23.4 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
22 Sept after 22.8 °C 62 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
23 Sept after 23.9 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Sept 2018
After · 20 Sept 2018

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 16 September 2018 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1021 µg/m³
910111213141516
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 · 3Every 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 Albania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sarandë fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 September 2018 to 13 September 2018 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 September 2018 to 13 September 2018.
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: Sarandë (114 ha, 0.1 %); Delvinë (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 23.7 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (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: 128 · 112 · 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 128 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 September 2018 to 13 September 2018. 3 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 2.5 Generic). 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.