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Thebes fire, August 2019 Θηβαίων · Thebes

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2019, 11:09 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2019 in Thebes, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 735 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Central Greece since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 3 in Greece in 2019, of 19.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.4 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
735ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
13 Aug 2019 – 13 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Aug
2019
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
160MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

13

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
52km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 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. Thebes Θηβαίων where it started
    697 ha reached on 13 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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub50 %
  • Agricultural areas28 %
  • Other natural land18 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.5 %
  • Artificial surfaces0.7 %

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)
13 Aug 30.1 °C 40 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Aug after 32.8 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
15 Aug after 31.5 °C 42 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Aug after 30.5 °C 48 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Aug after 29.0 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
18 Aug after 28.9 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Aug after 29.8 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Aug after 29.3 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Aug after 29.9 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Aug after 31.7 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 31.2 °C 35 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2019
After · 20 Aug 2019

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 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
PM1029 µg/m³
111213141516
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 · 18Every 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 Thebes fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 August 2019 and 13 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 735 hectares (7.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Thebes (697 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very 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.