Zakynthos fire, August 2025 Ζάκυνθος · Zakynthos
The fire started on 12 August 2025 in Zakynthos, Greece, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,780 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the largest fire in Ionian Islands since 2016 (of 20 with a page). Number 6 in Greece in 2025, of 43.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,780ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 12 Aug 2025 – 14 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 12 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 137
- in a single hotspot: 94 MW
- Danger at start
- 68
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 834MW
- 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 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 502 ha in 2017, 483 ha in 2019, 13 ha in 2024.
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
-
1,125 ha reached on 12 Aug3.0 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub61 %
- Agricultural areas27 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland6.4 %
- Artificial surfaces2.4 %
- Coniferous forest2.3 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 9 %
- ZEPA + LIC DYTIKES KAI VOREIOANATOLIKES AKTES ZAKYNTHOU GR2210001
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Aug | 34.9 °C | 23 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 13 Aug | 32.8 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 14 Aug | 28.9 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 15 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 25 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Aug after | 29.5 °C | 41 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 18 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Aug after | 29.5 °C | 42 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 53 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 64 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 27 |
| 23 Aug after | 29.9 °C | 42 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 24 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 44 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
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 15 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 35: 2.3 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 · 137Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 919 haZakynthos ΖάκυνθοςSeptember 2019 · 2 days · 2 km away
- 770 haZakynthos Ζάκυνθος12 August 2017 · 5 days · 2 km away
- 197 haZakynthos ΖάκυνθοςSeptember 2016 · 2 days · 5 km away
- 312 haZakynthos Ζάκυνθος11 August 2017 · 5 days · 12 km away
- 509 haZakynthos ΖάκυνθοςJuly 2017 · 1 day · 17 km away
- 1,592 haZakynthos Ζάκυνθος26 August 2017 · 3 days · 18 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zakynthos fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2025 and 14 August 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,780 hectares (27.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Zakynthos (1,125 ha, 3.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, class 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. 137 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.
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.