Analyzing the extent of the Greece wildfires from space

Through the lens of a satellite

For more than a week now we have been hearing news of devastating wildfires from Greece. Across all news sources and social media platforms, we can see horrifying images and videos that paint the picture of what is going on in Greece right now.

A natural disaster of unprecedented proportions

Media outlets report that the island of Evia has been the hotshot of the wildfires and more than 2000 people have been evacuated by now. Even though a lot of European countries are sending firefighters to help battle the situation in Greece, it seems like the wildfires are still not under control.

Gaining perspective

Even though the images and videos are horrifying, it is still hard to grasp the full extent of the wildfires since they are all taken directly from or close to the earth's surface (e.g. by helicopter) and only show a small extent of what's going on.

Only after seeing these satellite images taken by the European Sentinel-2 satellite constellation, I was able to fully understand the extent of the wildfires. Below you can see how the…