Varnavas fire, August 2024 Βαρνάβας · Marathon, Dionysos, Oropos
The fire started on 11 August 2024 in Marathon, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 10,971 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 8 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Attica since 2016 (of 32 with a page). The largest in Greece in 2024, of 42.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,971ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 8days
- 11 Aug 2024 – 18 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 8
- municipalities
- Started on
- 11 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 524
- in a single hotspot: 324 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 4.8GW
- 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: 1.2 mm on 21 Aug.
This area had burned before
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2018, 31 ha in 2020, 57 ha in 2021, 113 ha in 2022.
- 113 ha Rafina-Pikermi fire, July 2022 2,836 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 57 ha Varympompi fire, August 2021 8,454 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Marathon fire, July 2018 1,362 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).
Athens boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0).
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).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
4,898 ha reached on 11 Aug22 %
-
Dionysos Διόνυσος3,024 ha reached on 11 Aug47 %
-
1,518 ha reached on 11 Aug4.5 %
-
Penteli Πεντέλη1,342 ha reached on 12 Aug38 %
-
Kifisia Κηφισιά92 ha reached on 12 Aug2.7 %
-
Rafina-Pikermi Ραφήνα-Πικέρμι87 ha2.1 %
-
Vrilissia Βριλήσσια24 ha reached on 12 Aug6.5 %
-
Chalandri Χαλάνδρι3 ha reached on 13 Aug0.3 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland38 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub24 %
- Agricultural areas19 %
- Other natural land16 %
- Artificial surfaces3.0 %
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 68 hectares of built-up land and about 4,300 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 30 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Φωτιά στον Βαρνάβα · Attica wildfire 2024 · Varnavas fire
- Official area reported: 10,413 ha (the satellite measured 10,971 ha)
Sources
- Lessons learned from the 2024 fire season in Greece — UCP Knowledge Network (Comisión Europea), 22 January 2025 · official source
- Φωτιά στην Αττική: Νέος απολογισμός - 104.000 καμένα στρέμματα, σύμφωνα με το Copernicus — Ethnos, 15 August 2024
- Η Αττική μετρά τις πληγές της - Ο θλιβερός απολογισμός, τα σενάρια και τα 15 μέτρα στήριξης — CNN Greece, 14 August 2024
- Από κολόνα του ΔΕΔΔΗΕ ξεκίνησε η μεγάλη πυρκαγιά στον Βαρνάβα — Capital.gr (cita a Kathimerini)
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Aug | 31.1 °C | 32 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 12 Aug | 32.1 °C | 26 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Aug | 34.6 °C | 22 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Aug | 35.8 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Aug | 34.5 °C | 28 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Aug | 34.5 °C | 29 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Aug | 33.2 °C | 28 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Aug | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 22 |
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 2024 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 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 · 524Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,454 haVarympompi ΑχαρνέςAugust 2021 · 5 days · 8 km away
- 2,836 haRafina-Pikermi Ραφήνα-ΠικέρμιJuly 2022 · 2 days · 11 km away
- 1,362 haMarathon ΜαραθώναςJuly 2018 · 2 days · 12 km away
- 2,839 haOropos ΩρωπόςAugust 2017 · 4 days · 14 km away
- 6,057 haAspropyrgos ΑσπρόπυργοςAugust 2023 · 7 days · 22 km away
- 11,662 haDervenochoria Μάνδρας - ΕιδυλλίαςJuly 2023 · 7 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Varnavas fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2024 and 18 August 2024: 8 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 10,971 hectares (109.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 8 municipalities: Marathon (4,898 ha, 22 %); Dionysos (3,024 ha, 47 %); Oropos (1,518 ha, 4.5 %); Penteli (1,342 ha, 38 %); Kifisia (92 ha, 2.7 %); Rafina-Pikermi (87 ha, 2.1 %); Vrilissia (24 ha, 6.5 %); Chalandri (3 ha, 0.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 16.3 km of the centre of Oropos, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 524 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 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.