Wildfires in Greece: emergency numbers, evacuation and live fire map

Not all of Greece burns equally. Four areas account for most of the serious episodes:

• Attica — the mountain fringe around Athens, especially Parnitha, Penteli and Mount Hymettus. Small distances, enormous exposed population and suburbs built directly into the pine.
• Evia (Euboea) — continuous pine forest with poor road access. The 2021 fire burned much of the island's north for days.
• Rhodes and Crete — the tourist problem in its purest form. In 2023 Rhodes saw the largest tourist evacuation in Greek history, with thousands moved off beaches by boat.
• Peloponnese and Evros — Evros in the northeast holds the record: roughly 93,000 hectares in 2023, the largest single wildfire in EU history until the Madrid disaster of July 2026.

Island geography deserves particular attention. On Rhodes, Crete or Zakynthos many resorts sit on a road with one lane in each direction. An evacuation blocks it both ways, which is why Greek authorities sometimes evacuate by sea rather than by road.

The points below are thermal anomalies detected by the VIIRS instrument on the NOAA-20 and Suomi NPP satellites. They are temperature readings, not confirmed fires, and each satellite passes over a given spot only a few times a day. A fire that starts mid-afternoon may not appear until the night overpass.

Detections above 30 MW of radiative power are marked with a flame icon, because past that threshold you are almost always looking at real vegetation burning. Below it, a good share of Greek detections are agricultural stubble burning in Thessaly and Macedonia, or industrial heat: the refinery flares near Athens and Thessaloniki burn continuously and show up every single night at the same coordinates.

One practical tip: a line of points running roughly north to south during a meltemi episode is not several separate fires. It is one front being pushed by the wind, and that geometry is exactly what worries incident commanders.

Firefighting is the job of the Hellenic Fire Service (Pyrosvestiko Soma), a single national body rather than the regional patchwork found in Spain or Italy. That simplifies coordination, but it also means resources stretch thin when several major fronts run at once.

The 2026 season figures give the scale: 18,804 firefighters by the end of the period, up from 17,727 at the season's start, counting both career and seasonal staff. Up to 85 aircraft, owned and leased, and 4,299 vehicles. The air fleet includes 7 CL-215 and 6 newer CL-415 water bombers, 16 Polish-built PZL aircraft, 21 Air Tractors and 3 heavy Chinook helicopters.

Separate from the regular service are the EMODE units, informally known as forest commandos, trained for terrain no vehicle can reach. They have grown from 6 units in 2022 to 21 units and 1,450 personnel today — a direct response to the catastrophic 2021 and 2023 seasons.

The newer layer is a network of more than 100 drone bases, and the payoff is measurable: in Attica alone, drones caught over a thousand ignitions last season within the first minutes, when a single engine can still put a fire out. Greece also uses pre-positioning: firefighting crews from four European countries are stationed in the country before the season rather than flown in after a disaster starts.

Greek Civil Protection publishes a fire risk forecast map every afternoon for the following day, rating each region on a five-point scale. It is worth checking, because concrete consequences follow from the number.

• 1 — low. Normal readiness.
• 2 — medium. Increased patrols.
• 3 — high. Farm machinery work banned, aircraft on raised alert.
• 4 — very high. National parks and trails close, forest access prohibited.
• 5 — state of emergency. Declared rarely. Forest areas sealed, municipalities on evacuation standby, organised excursions cancelled.

A category 4 or 5 rating for Attica, Rhodes or Crete means your planned hike through the Samaria Gorge or drive up Parnitha may be cancelled that same morning. Checking the rating the evening before saves a wasted trip.

Greek fires spread faster than most in Europe, and that is biology rather than bad luck.

Calabrian pine and Aleppo pine dominate the coast. Both carry high resin content and low crowns, and Aleppo pine cones only open under heat — the species is adapted to burning every few decades and regenerating from seed.

Beneath them grows maquis: kermes oak, mastic, heather, juniper and rock rose. These are dense, hard shrubs loaded with essential oils that burn at very high temperatures. Maquis forms a fuel ladder, a vertical continuity that carries flame from the ground into the canopy. Once that happens the fire becomes a crown fire and ground crews can no longer hold it.

Olive groves are a separate case. Old olive trees resist burning, but the dry grass and pruning debris between rows make excellent fine fuel. Add eucalyptus, planted on the Peloponnese and Crete, whose leaves hold volatile oils that encourage crown fire and throw embers hundreds of metres ahead of the front.

Greece is among the EU countries hardest hit by wildfire, but the picture is more nuanced than headlines suggest.

The record remains the Evros fire of 2023 at roughly 93,000 hectares, the largest single wildfire in European Union history until the Madrid and Ávila disaster of July 2026. Two years earlier, in 2021, fire consumed much of northern Evia and the slopes of Parnitha above Athens. The 2023 season also produced the Rhodes evacuation, the largest movement of tourists in Greek history.

The counterweight matters: the overwhelming majority of ignitions never become fires. A thousand drone detections in Attica in one season means a thousand fires that never made the news. That ratio — the share of fires stopped below one hectare — measures the system better than total hectares burned.

Causes have been consistent for years and are overwhelmingly human. Stubble and pruning-debris burning, sparks from machinery and chainsaws, discarded cigarettes, ageing power lines running through forest, and a share of deliberate ignitions. Lightning accounts for a minority of cases, though usually in terrain that is hard to reach.

• Call 112. It works across the EU, without a SIM card and on a locked phone, and operators take calls in English. 199 reaches the Greek fire service directly, but 112 guarantees English.
• Do not switch off emergency alerts. Greece uses 112 Cell Broadcast for evacuation orders. The message reaches every phone in the area regardless of network or SIM country, without mobile data, and sounds an alarm even on silent.
• Sheltering can be safer than fleeing once the front is close. A masonry building with windows shut beats a narrow road full of smoke.
• If evacuating by car, close windows, set air conditioning to recirculate, switch headlights on, and never park on the shoulder of an evacuation route.
• Move perpendicular to the wind, never uphill directly ahead of the flame front.
• On islands, know the second exit from your resort before you need it. If the coastal road is the only one, expect evacuation by sea.

If a fire affects your flight or booking, keep screenshots of the official alerts you received — they are the basis of any later claim. Live tracking in Polish: Greece fire map, Rhodes and Crete.