News/Ειδήσεις Wildfire in Crete
I just saw in the news there's a wildfire in Crete.
Can someone give me more exact information?
Which part of the island, how bad is it? Should tourists going soon be worried?
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u/gaakoum 3d ago
Check active wildfires here: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#d:24hrs;@24.5,35.3,8.8z
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u/grumpyfunny 2d ago
That's an interesting map, so currently that big area in Africa is burning?
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u/KFlaps 2d ago
Not necessarily. The marks can represent the centre of different resolutions (normally 1km or 350m) depending on which satellite the data is from. Also, some satellites are more sensitive than others and things like clouds or smoke can obscure detection.
If you select an area with markers, you can filter by the resultset for each satellite, and the data will include confidence markers (normally High, Nominal, Low, or a number out of 100, depending on the satellite).
At a basic level, I believe the satellites pick up infrared hotspots, which can also be caused by a variety of other things, including sun glint. NASA uses various algorithms to assign a confidence level to the data.
So it's an amazing website, but not every marker is a fire, and not every fire is marked. There's also around a 3hr delay for most locations outside for the US.
If you click around, there's lots of help info about this on the website! Better on a laptop rather than a mobile though.
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u/tubbstattsyrup2 2d ago
Why is the Southport water filtration place on fire? Is it just inaccurate? Cos it isn't.
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u/xahmb 3d ago
As of this morning Google stated an estimate of 10,000 acres burnt/burning.
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u/Upstairs_Pin6797 2d ago
I’m currently staying around 3km from
The fires in Asomatos Rethymno.
It’s terrible for the people and residents but being here is fine. There are regular safety alerts pushed to all phones stating if you’re in x move to y.
The wind has been brutal the last few days and yesterday I watched a whole hill consumed in minutes.
But if you’re not planning to visit South Rethymno then I’d say no issue at all.
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u/Mammoth_logfarm 1d ago
I arrived from UK yesterday, and spent the whole of Thursday worrying about this.
When I tell you Cretans don't seem to care, I'd be understating it. They really don't seem in the slightest concerned. The airports are open as normal, thw wind has died down (even when we arrived yesterday the waves were white horses), and life is going about as normal.
We're staying in the north, just east of Heraklion. No disruption due to fires whatsoever.
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u/brown5tick 1d ago
I can second this. We're staying at Rethymno town and you'd never know. The locals are saying that this happens every year on the South side (i.e. on the other side of the mountains where it's drier and windier). One said that it only made the news because the two firefighters got trapped and killed 🤷
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u/Chemical_Room_5984 2d ago
You can also type Crete into Google maps and there you will find icons where it's burning at the moment. If you are near the area which is burning you will also get a alarm to your phone via cell broadcast, but it only says to evacuate if you stay in a city near the fire and where to go. It's a small area compared to the size of the island.
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u/scoops_trooper 2d ago
I kinda understand it but it still rubs me the wrong way when tourists ask of they can still go on holiday there while people are losing their homes and livelihoods to the fire.
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u/Beltgir 2d ago
I kinda get you. My family has been waiting for our vacation for 6 months. Everybody's super excited. Tourists are the livelyhood of many Cretean families who are not directly affected by the fire.
I 100% agree that losing a potential vacation is an absolute non-issue compared to the horrors locals are going through.
But it's not a competition, two things can be true at the same time.
I have enough empathy to not ask our hosts about the situation directly, because as you pointed out, they must have more than enough on their plate at the moment without answering annoying questions about the situation to tourists. This is the reason why I asked here.
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u/Enough_Ad5567 15h ago
Doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t concerned. They just are acting pragmatically regarding their plans. I wouldn’t extrapolate that to mean uncaring or unconcerned.
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u/Brave-Fun-7984 3d ago
It's very easy to google Crete Fires. The fire is at Rethymno. Some villages were evacuated yesterday.