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Velo-Vocha fire, July 2021 Βέλου - Βόχας · Velo-Vocha, Nemea, Corinth

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2021, 11:59 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2021 in Velo-Vocha, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 251 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 26th largest in Peloponnese since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 29 in Greece in 2021, of 45.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Corinth · 2020Xylokastro-Evrostina · 2018Loutraki-Agioi Theodoroi · 2023Sikyona · 2025

Burnt area
251ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
23 Jul 2021 – 25 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2021
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
176MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul25 Jul
25 Jul 2021

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2021 · 327 MW · 5 25 Jul 2021 · 24 MW · 1
23 Jul 25 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
51km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 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. Velo-Vocha Βέλου - Βόχας 7,926 inhabitants · 10.1 km from the centre where it started
    136 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.8 %
  2. Nemea Νεμέα
    88 ha
    0.4 %
  3. Corinth Κόρινθος 35,650 inhabitants
    27 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.0 %

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 areas39 %
  • Coniferous forest32 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland29 %

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)
23 Jul 30.1 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul 29.8 °C 33 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jul 30.7 °C 29 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
26 Jul after 32.0 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Jul after 34.7 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul after 35.2 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul after 38.4 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul after 39.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul after 39.2 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug after 38.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Aug after 39.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Aug after 41.5 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Aug after 39.4 °C 18 % 37 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.

Before · 16 Jul 2021
After · 1 Aug 2021

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 27 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1030 µg/m³
2122232425262728
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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Greece ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Velo-Vocha fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2021 and 25 July 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 251 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Velo-Vocha (136 ha, 0.8 %); Nemea (88 ha, 0.4 %); Corinth (27 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Velo-Vocha and came within 10.1 km of its centre. 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 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 51 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 · 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.

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?

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 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.