Ash 200,000 acres, from the fires in 2022 according to the meteo of the Observatory

The more favorable fire-meteorological conditions that prevailed during this summer in our country, had the result that, although there were many fires in number, they burned generally smaller areas than in the past.

The summer of 2022 ranks among the 15 least extreme hot summers overall for our country in the last 42 years, according to a preliminary analysis by the FLAME pyrometeorological team of the National Observatory of Athens/meteo.gr and data from the European Copernicus service and the European Center for Medium-Range Meteorological Forecasts (ECMWF).

This summer saw a total of 39 extremely hot hours, far below the 1980-2022 average of 77 hours. Tthe summer of 2022 was much milder than 2021, when 314 extremely hot hours were recorded, making it the warmest since 1980. The summer of 2021 is followed by those of 2012, 2007 and 1987, when prolonged periods of high temperatures occurred in our country.

According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), the burned areas in our country from the beginning of 2022 until the last ten days of October were approximately 200,000 hectares, areas that correspond approximately to 46 % of the average burnt area in our country during the period 2006-2021.

This burned area occurred in a number of forest fires, which during the summer months were two to three times larger than the corresponding average for the period 2006-2021.

According to meteo, despite the fact that there were significantly more forest fires than average during this summer, most were accompanied by small burnt areas. This is linked both to the fire-meteorological conditions that prevailed during the fire season and to human intervention (firefighting), with the fire-meteorological conditions having the primary role, since they determine the possibility of their effective interception by humans.

A first analysis of the Canadian Pyrometeorological Indicator System pyrometeorological data from the European Copernicus Service and the European Center for Medium-Range Meteorological Forecasts (ECMWF) during the summer months of June-August of 2022 shows that on average in our country, with the exception of the period July 15-August 15, prolonged periods of adverse pyrometeorological conditions were absent. During the period 15/07-15/08 there were several days where the combination of relatively high temperatures, low humidity and significantly strengthened northerly winds resulted in the prevalence of unfavorable fire-meteorological conditions in a large part of the country, a period during which there were also the most destructive fires in areas of Lesvos, Attica, Evros, Crete, Kos and Western Peloponnese.

As a result of the atmospheric instability and significant rainfall in our country after the first ten days of August, accompanied by lower temperatures for the season, there was a significant improvement in the fire-meteorological conditions, which were at very low levels in the last days of August. In contrast to 2022, the summer of 2021 saw particularly unfavorable fire-meteorological conditions almost throughout the summer, peaking in the last ten days of July and the first ten days of August, whenever record prices for the season were recorded due to the extreme heat wave that affected our country.

A further analysis of temperature extremes and burned areas, based on data from the Fire Service during the period 2000-2022, shows that some of the hottest summers of the past 22 years were accompanied by large numbers of burned areas. Observatory scientists emphasize that although extreme high temperatures contribute to the creation of a more flammable environment by reducing the moisture content of dead forest fuel, they are not the only factor in the formation of adverse fire-meteorological conditionso. Adverse pyrometeorological conditions develop through the interaction of atmospheric processes on different time scalessuch as rainfall that has occurred in an area from hours to months before, as well as changes in temperature, humidity and wind.

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