Halkidiki fire map
Halkidiki's three peninsulas are pine-forested down to the shore, which is what makes it beautiful and what makes fire there serious.
What is happening in Halkidiki now
| Area | Status | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Kassandra: Siviri and Fourka | Active fire | A fire that started in low scrub near Siviri on the afternoon of 13 August reached the sea and brought 112 messages to leave Siviri and Fourka. |
6 satellite fire detections inside Halkidiki in the latest NASA FIRMS pass (2026-08-15 to 2026-08-16). A detection is heat seen from orbit; it is not by itself a reported fire, and not every detection becomes one.
Three peninsulas, and how few ways there are off them
The area drawn here takes in Kassandra and Sithonia whole, and the landward end of the Athos peninsula as far as Ouranoupoli. Pine runs down to the shoreline on the first two, which is what people come for and what makes fire here a different proposition from fire on open ground. Kassandra is barely a peninsula at all: a canal 1,250 metres long and 40 metres wide was cut across the isthmus at Nea Potidaia, and a bridge over it is the only road on and off. Sithonia is served by one road that loops the coast, down the west side through Neos Marmaras and back up the east through Sarti.
Athos is an autonomous monastic territory entered on a permit, the diamonitirion, and reached by boat from Ouranoupoli or Ierissos, so what happens there is neither reported nor managed like an incident at a resort. On Kassandra and Sithonia the consequence is blunter: a fire crossing the road does not merely delay you, it removes the alternative. This is why people here have been taken off beaches by boat.
Reading a detection on a narrow peninsula
On 21 August 2006 lightning from a squall line at the end of a heatwave started a fire in the pine above the eastern Kassandra resorts. It burned for three days, killed two people and destroyed hotels and resort facilities. The shape of the ground has not changed since. These peninsulas are only a few kilometres across, so both coasts are within reach of one fire, and the sea breeze that builds through the day pushes air off the water and up into the wooded slopes behind the beaches, which is the direction a fire wants to travel anyway. A detection inland of a resort strip therefore deserves more attention than the same detection on a wide plain, because there is very little ground between the trees and the hotels.
Part of Halkidiki & Northern Greece, which covers the wider area.
Where this comes from
Fire locations are NASA FIRMS satellite detections. Status for each area is set from what the named authority has published, never from satellite data alone — see how this site works.
- Περιφέρεια Κεντρικής Μακεδονίας (Region of Central Macedonia)
- Πυροσβεστικό Σώμα (Hellenic Fire Service)
If you are travelling
Conditions change hourly during a fire. The authorities above are always right where this page and they disagree, and in danger anywhere in the European Union the emergency number is 112.
Most serious status in Halkidiki right now: Active fire.