West Achaea fire, October 2021 Δυτικής Αχαΐας · West Achaea
The fire started on 4 October 2021 in West Achaea, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 130 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 27th largest in Western Greece since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 37 in Greece in 2021, of 45.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 130ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 4 Oct 2021 – 4 Oct 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Oct
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 46 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 46MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
4 Oct 2021 · 46 MW · 1
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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.4 mm on 7 Oct.
This area had burned before
72% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 64 ha in 2016, 58 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 94 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
130 ha reached on 4 Oct0.2 %
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 land100 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC LIMNOTHALASSA KALOGRIAS, DASOS STROFYLIAS KAI ELOS LAMIAS, ARAXOS GR2320001
- ZEPA YGROTOPOI KALOGRIAS-LAMIAS KAI DASOS STROFYLIAS GR2320011
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Oct | 28.0 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Oct after | 28.9 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Oct after | 27.6 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Oct after | 26.2 °C | 43 % | 54 km/h | 15.4 mm | Very low 5 |
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 October 2021 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 340 haWest Achaea Δυτικής ΑχαΐαςNovember 2024 · 2 days · 1 km away
- 1,483 haWest Achaea Δυτικής ΑχαΐαςSeptember 2017 · 1 day · 18 km away
- 2,846 haPatras Πάτρα12 August 2025 · 2 days · 23 km away
- 242 haIlida ΉλιδαςSeptember 2020 · 1 day · 24 km away
- 818 haWest Achaea Δυτικής ΑχαΐαςJuly 2022 · 2 days · 25 km away
- 4,336 haErymanthos ΕρυμάνθουJune 2024 · 2 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the West Achaea fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 October 2021 and 4 October 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 130 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered West Achaea (130 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection 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.
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.