Kythira wildfires

Southern Europe experienced a relentless heatwave this summer, fuelling wildfires in a number of countries. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite pair captured the start of a fire on the Greek island of Kythira on 4 August. Five days later, a huge burn scar is visible across the western part of the island.

Greek authorities say they have contained the blaze, which destroyed more than 2000 hectares of land.

Carrying a high-resolution multispectral optical imager, Sentinel-2 is used to monitor changes in vegetation (in this ‘false-colour’ image, vegetation is in red). The mission offers key information to optimise crop yield, thereby helping to improve food security. It can be used to measure leaf area, leaf chlorophyll and leaf water content to monitor plant growth, which is particularly important during the growing season.