How long did the Thebes fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (2 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 2 September 2026 (1 day from 2 September 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 348 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Thebes (348 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

EL · Greece · 2026-09-02 → 2026-09-02

Thebes fire, September 2026 Θηβαίων · Thebes

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2026, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 2 September 2026 in Thebes, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 348 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Central Greece since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 17 in Greece in 2026, of 28.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Thebes · 2016 Thebes · 2023 Vilia · 2021 Dervenochoria · 2023

Burnt area: 348ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: ≈ 1day; 2 Sept 2026 – 2 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 2 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 6; in a single hotspot: 205 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 626MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Sept2 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

2 Sept 2026 · 626 MW · 6

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

37km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 90 ha in 2016, 65 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

Thebes Θηβαίων where it started

348 ha reached on 2 Sept

0.4 %

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

Sclerophyllous scrub44 %
Other natural land41 %
Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
Agricultural areas4.1 %

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)
2 Sept	33.5 °C	27 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Sept after	30.4 °C	48 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
4 Sept after	29.2 °C	43 %	51 km/h	0.3 mm	High 36
5 Sept after	30.8 °C	27 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Sept after	34.8 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Sept after	32.0 °C	24 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Sept after	27.8 °C	38 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Sept after	28.5 °C	34 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Sept after	29.9 °C	35 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Sept after	31.6 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
12 Sept after	35.1 °C	21 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Aug 2026

After · 9 Sept 2026

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 4 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1021 µg/m³

Optical depth0.27

3112345

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 · 6Every 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 Greece ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Thebes fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (2 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 2 September 2026 (1 day from 2 September 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 348 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Thebes (348 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · 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.

Report an error

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 112 · 199.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 6 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 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.

Where it burned