Sarandë fire, 6 August 2025 Delvinë, Sarandë, Gjirokastër
The fire started on 6 August 2025 in Sarandë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 12,229 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Vlorë since 2016 (of 160 with a page). The largest in Albania in 2025, of 71.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 12,229ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 9days
- 6 Aug 2025 – 14 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 6 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 526
- in a single hotspot: 152 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 629MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 18 Aug.
This area had burned before
38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 895 ha in 2016, 1,130 ha in 2017, 47 ha in 2018, 1,002 ha in 2019, 36 ha in 2020, 104 ha in 2021, 365 ha in 2022, 837 ha in 2023, 1,894 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,655 ha that had burned before.
- 1,511 ha Delvinë fire, July 2024 4,153 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 932 ha Delvinë fire, August 2019 966 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 895 ha Sarandë fire, July 2016 1,011 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 774 ha Delvinë fire, September 2023 773 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 514 ha Sarandë fire, August 2017 606 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 360 ha Gjirokastër fire, August 2017 5,609 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 256 ha Gjirokastër fire, July 2022 1,633 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 206 ha Delvinë fire, August 2017 206 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
9,037 ha reached on 7 Aug25 %
-
Sarandë where it started2,943 ha reached on 6 Aug3.5 %
-
256 ha reached on 12 Aug0.2 %
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 land41 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland26 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub13 %
- Broadleaved forest11 %
- Agricultural areas8.8 %
- Artificial surfaces0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 14 hectares of built-up land and about 1,700 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- zjarri në Delvinë · zjarri në Finiq · Matomara / Sirakat / Kardhikaq
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Delvinë 25 July 2025
- Finiq hacia Delvinë 12 August 2025
- Kakodhik / Kasapaj 12 August 2025
Sources
- United in response, EU Assistance in Albania's summer wildfires — EEAS (UE), 23 December 2025 · official source
- Kërcënonte Gjirokastrën dhe Lazaratin, shuhet plotësisht zjarri që po vinte nga Delvina — Shqiptarja.com, 13 August 2025
- Delvina facing flames, over 1 thousand residents evacuated — Gazeta Express, 13 August 2025
- Albania Battles Deadly Wildfires Amid Heatwave — Tirana Times, 13 August 2025
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Aug | 29.0 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 7 Aug | 30.5 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 8 Aug | 31.1 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 9 Aug | 32.7 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 10 Aug | 33.9 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Aug | 34.1 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Aug | 34.4 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Aug | 33.1 °C | 30 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Aug | 29.0 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 16 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 45 % | 26 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 10 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 14 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 526Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sarandë fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 6 August 2025 and 14 August 2025: 9 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 12,229 hectares (122.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Delvinë (9,037 ha, 25 %); Sarandë (2,943 ha, 3.5 %); Gjirokastër (256 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 526 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.