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West Achaea fire, September 2023 Δυτικής Αχαΐας · West Achaea

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2023, 01:28 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2023 in West Achaea, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 101 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Western Greece since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 34 in Greece in 2023, of 34.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: West Achaea · 2024West Achaea · 2017Patras · 2025West Achaea · 2022

Burnt area
101ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
8 Sept 2023 – 9 Sept 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
8 Sept
2023
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
12
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
38MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept9 Sept
9 Sept 2023

How it evolved, day by day

8 Sept 2023 · 35 MW · 4 9 Sept 2023 · 41 MW · 6
8 Sept 9 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
31km/h · peak gust
49%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. West Achaea Δυτικής Αχαΐας where it started
    102 ha reached on 8 Sept
    0.2 %

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 %

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)
9 Sept 28.1 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
10 Sept after 28.5 °C 39 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
11 Sept after 27.9 °C 41 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Sept after 30.1 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Sept after 29.6 °C 40 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
14 Sept after 28.1 °C 56 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
15 Sept after 28.0 °C 57 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
16 Sept after 29.3 °C 57 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Sept after 30.7 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Sept after 30.0 °C 44 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
19 Sept after 29.5 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2023
After · 16 Sept 2023

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 8 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
6789101112
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 · 10Every 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 West Achaea fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 September 2023 to 9 September 2023 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2023 to 9 September 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 101 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered West Achaea (102 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 49 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 September 2023 to 9 September 2023. 10 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.