The total burnt area in Greece, from the beginning of the year until Thursday 24.08.2023
The statistics on the progress of this year’s fire season in our country, as they emerge from the analysis of the data of the European Forest Fire Information System (https://effis.jrc.ec.europa.eu) processed by the Fire Meteorological FLAME team of the METEO unit of the National Observatory of Athens (EAA).
Particularly:
The cumulative burnt area in Greece, from the beginning of the year until Thursday 24.08.2023, records an increase of +195% compared to the average area (2002 – 2022) burned annually in our country.
Recording 1,281,480 hectares of burnt land until Thursday 24.08.2023, Greece ranks first among 20 Mediterranean countries.
Spain comes second with 824,640 acres and Italy third with 595,330 acres. France (+66%) and Morocco (+30%) also recorded an increase in burnt areas, while a decrease was recorded in the rest of the countries.
The cumulative number of large forest fires (>300 acres) in Greece, from the beginning of the year until Thursday 24.08.2023, records a decrease of -52% compared to the number of large forest fires that on average (2002 – 2022) occur in our country on an annual scale. An increase in the number of forest fires is recorded in Spain (+78%), France (+194%), Morocco (+51%), Cyprus (+2%), Libya (+3%) and Slovenia (+14%).
Recording 27 large forest fires (>300 acres) by Thursday 24.08.2023, Greece ranks seventh among 20 Mediterranean countries. In first place is Spain with 340 forest fires during 2023.
The average burnt area per large forest fire in Greece, from the beginning of the year until Thursday 24.08.2023, shows an increase of +517% compared to the corresponding average of the period 2002 – 2022.
Recording, on average, 47,462 hectares per forest fire until Thursday 24.08.2023, Greece ranks first among 20 Mediterranean countries, by a huge margin.
Algeria comes second with an average of 10,517 hectares per forest fire and Syria comes third with an average of 6,053 hectares per forest fire.
Increases were also recorded in Tunisia (+1%) and Italy (+35%), with the rest of the countries showing a decrease in average hectares per forest fire.
This evidence demonstrates that an immediate, drastic shift towards integrated forest fire management and response solutions is required. In this direction, the METEO/EAA unit can contribute with tools and services such as indicatively (1) the extensive and denser network of automatic weather stations in Greece, (2) the advanced rapid response forecasting system IRIS 2.0, and (3) ) the high-resolution meteorological and pyrometeorological forecasts.
Source: Skai
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