Varympompi fire, August 2021 Βαρυμπόμπη · Acharnes, Oropos, Dionysos
The fire started on 3 August 2021 in Acharnes, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 8,454 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Attica since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 5 in Greece in 2021, of 45.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 8,454ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Aug 2021 – 7 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 504
- in a single hotspot: 571 MW
- Danger at start
- 66
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 4.3GW
- 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 13 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.
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
-
4,298 ha reached on 3 Aug29 %
-
4,135 ha reached on 6 Aug12 %
-
Dionysos Διόνυσος32 ha reached on 3 Aug0.5 %
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
- Agricultural areas24 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland23 %
- Mixed forest21 %
- Coniferous forest15 %
- Artificial surfaces11 %
- Broadleaved forest4.2 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub2.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 25 %
- ZEPA + LIC OROS PARNITHA GR3000001
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.
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 Βαρυμπόμπη · Φωτιά Τατόι · Varibobi fire
- Official area reported: 10,000 ha (the satellite measured 8,454 ha)
Sources
- Φωτιά στη Βαρυμπόμπη: Τι προκάλεσε την καταστροφική πυρκαγιά τον Αύγουστο του 2021 - Το άγνωστο πόρισμα της Πυροσβεστικής — Lawandorder.gr, 24 May 2022
- Φωτιά σε Βαρυμπόμπη και Τατόι: Πυλώνα ηλεκτρισμού «δείχνει» η Πυροσβεστική - Τι απαντά ο ΑΔΜΗΕ — CNN Greece, 24 May 2022
- Το πόρισμα για την περσινή φωτιά σε Τατόι – Βαρυμπόμπη – Σε ποιους επιρρίπτονται ευθύνες — Ta Nea, 24 May 2022
- More than 100 thousand hectares burned in Attica and Evia — Athens News (rua.gr), 7 August 2021
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 40.7 °C | 10 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 4 Aug | 39.6 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 5 Aug | 39.8 °C | 8 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 6 Aug | 35.1 °C | 8 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 7 Aug | 31.3 °C | 26 % | 54 km/h | 0.7 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Aug after | 36.5 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 29 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 13 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 27 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 14 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 31 % | 72 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 15 Aug after | 28.2 °C | 25 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 16 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 18 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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 6 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.0 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 · 504Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,971 haVarnavas ΜαραθώναςAugust 2024 · 8 days · 8 km away
- 2,839 haOropos ΩρωπόςAugust 2017 · 4 days · 14 km away
- 2,836 haRafina-Pikermi Ραφήνα-ΠικέρμιJuly 2022 · 2 days · 15 km away
- 6,057 haAspropyrgos ΑσπρόπυργοςAugust 2023 · 7 days · 16 km away
- 1,362 haMarathon ΜαραθώναςJuly 2018 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 11,662 haDervenochoria Μάνδρας - ΕιδυλλίαςJuly 2023 · 7 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Varympompi fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2021 and 7 August 2021: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 8,454 hectares (84.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Acharnes (4,298 ha, 29 %); Oropos (4,135 ha, 12 %); Dionysos (32 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 9.7 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 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very extreme.
- 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. 504 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.
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.