How long did the Sarandë fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 20 August 2019 and 20 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 193 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Sarandë (193 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.

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.

AL · Albania · 2019-08-20 → 2019-08-20

Sarandë fire, 20 August 2019 Sarandë

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2019, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2019 in Sarandë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 193 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 88th largest in Vlorë since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 11 in Albania in 2019, of 31.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.2 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 · 2017 Sarandë · 2025 Gjirokastër · 2017 Delvinë · 2024

Burnt area: 193ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 20 Aug 2019 – 20 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 20 Aug; 2019
Heat detections: 15; in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start: 23; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 105MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2019 · 105 MW · 15

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

32km/h · peak gust

45%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 77 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Sarandë where it started

193 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.2 %

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 land96 %
Artificial surfaces3.1 %
Agricultural areas0.5 %

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)
20 Aug	31.8 °C	45 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
21 Aug after	31.8 °C	43 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
22 Aug after	33.9 °C	37 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
23 Aug after	34.3 °C	39 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
24 Aug after	34.8 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Aug after	34.5 °C	35 %	22 km/h	0.1 mm	High 25
26 Aug after	35.1 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
27 Aug after	34.3 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
28 Aug after	33.8 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
29 Aug after	32.6 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
30 Aug after	32.4 °C	34 %	28 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 · 13 Aug 2019

After · 27 Aug 2019

Before After

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 23 August 2019 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

PM1022 µg/m³

WHO 15

181920212223

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 · 15Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Albania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sarandë fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 20 August 2019 and 20 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 193 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Sarandë (193 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class High.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 15 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.

Where it burned