Evros · Eastern Macedonia and Thrace · Greece · August–September 2023
On 29 August 2023 the European Commission reported more than 81,000 hectares burnt in the Alexandroupolis region. A Commission update on 22 November cited more than 96,000 hectares for the wildfire. A separate Copernicus post-fire product mapped damage classes using satellite imagery. The two public area figures and the damage assessment answer different questions about the event.
From the first response to recovery mapping
- 19 August. Copernicus dates the start near Aristino to the early morning and describes evacuations of nearby villages. Its retrospective entry records that Rapid Mapping EMSR686 was triggered during the emergency.
- 20–29 August. Greece activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism on 20 August for its second request that summer. The Commission’s 29 August dispatch reports the area estimate for Alexandroupolis and lists international aircraft, firefighters and vehicles deployed to Greece. The dispatch describes deployments at country level. European Commission response update of 29 August
- 8 September. The Copernicus Risk and Recovery entry gives this as the date the fire was considered extinguished. The damage delineation combines post-event images. Copernicus EMSN166 damage assessment
- 22 November. The Commission’s autumn update cites more than 96,000 hectares for the 2023 Alexandroupolis event. European Commission update of 22 November
Keeping the measurements comparable
| Figure | Reporting scope |
|---|---|
| More than 81,000 ha | Burnt-area figure quoted in the 29 August response dispatch |
| More than 96,000 ha | Burnt-area figure cited in the 22 November update |
| 36% in the High Damage class | Share of the burnt area classified in that category by the EMSN166 dNBR approach |
The two rounded reporting thresholds are 15,000 hectares apart. Both are expressed as lower bounds, so their subtraction cannot establish a measured increment. The dNBR result is a proportion of the post-event mapped area in an image-based class. Recovering an exact incident-wide area from it would require the assessment mask and class-area table.
Evidence limits
The area estimates are tied to their publication dates and the damage classes to their mapping method. A time series of fire spread would require comparable acquisition windows and coverage. The damage label describes a remote-sensing class. Building losses, ecological recovery and the intensity of the active fire each require evidence suited to that question.