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Thassou fire, August 2022 Θάσου · Thassou

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2022, 10:19 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2022 in Thassou, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 313 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 11 in Greece in 2022, of 29.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.5 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
313ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
10 Aug 2022 – 13 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
10 Aug
2022
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
179MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1113

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
32km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.6 mm on 21 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Thassou Θάσου where it started
    314 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.8 %

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

  • Coniferous forest85 %
  • Other natural land12 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 92 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
10 Aug 28.4 °C 44 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Aug 26.5 °C 51 % 31 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 12
12 Aug 26.7 °C 47 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
13 Aug 26.1 °C 52 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Aug after 24.3 °C 60 % 34 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 12
15 Aug after 24.7 °C 61 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Aug after 25.8 °C 70 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Aug after 28.1 °C 56 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Aug after 29.3 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Aug after 28.7 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
20 Aug after 27.3 °C 67 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
21 Aug after 26.8 °C 65 % 29 km/h 5.6 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2022
After · 20 Aug 2022

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 11 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.59
8910111213141516
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 · 20Every 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 Thassou fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2022 and 13 August 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 313 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Thassou (314 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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.