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AL · Albania · –

Vlorë fire, 24 July 2025 Vlorë

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2025, 00:07 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2025 in Vlorë, Albania, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,463 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Vlorë since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 6 in Albania in 2025, of 71.

Compare with…
Burnt area
1,463ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
24 Jul 2025 – 27 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
24 Jul
2025
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Average daily power
364MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul27 Jul
27 Jul 2025

How it evolved, day by day

24 Jul 2025 · 402 MW · 26 25 Jul 2025 · 766 MW · 23 26 Jul 2025 · 287 MW · 32 27 Jul 2025 · 1 MW · 1
24 Jul 25 Jul 26 Jul 27 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
50km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 29 Jul.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 71 ha in 2019, 172 ha in 2020, 15 ha in 2021, 145 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 378 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.9% of the area of London (15 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Vlorë where it started
    1,464 ha reached on 24 Jul
    0.9 %

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

  • Other natural land58 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub32 %
  • Broadleaved forest8.1 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland1.6 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.93 ha
Residents≈ 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.93 hectares of built-up land and about 20 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

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)
24 Jul 28.1 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jul 30.9 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul 30.1 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul 23.6 °C 52 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul after 23.0 °C 50 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Jul after 20.9 °C 53 % 33 km/h 1.9 mm Low 8

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 37.5, a minimum humidity of 29% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 35.

FWI at the start 37.5
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Librazhd fire, August 2017
129 ha 5 days FWI 38.3 Min. humidity 29 % 89 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.2 mm on 13 Aug.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
174 ha
median area
11 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 26 of 35 had it)

It was 8.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 4 days, against 3 days.

Only 2 of its 35 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 9 of 35, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.7 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.9 mmfirst rain
29 Jul2 days after it ended
50km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 27 Jul, and on 29 Jul 1.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 26 of 35, with a median of 2.7 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2025
After · 3 Aug 2025

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 28 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1091 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
22 Jul24 Jul26 Jul28 Jul30 Jul
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 · 82Every 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 Albania

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vlorë fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2025 and 27 July 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,463 hectares (14.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vlorë (1,464 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Albania (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 35. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 174 ha; 11 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 35 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 9 of 35, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.7 mm.

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: 128 · 112 · 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.

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 128 · 112.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 82 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.
  • 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.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic). 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.