ATHENS, Greece — When wildfires break out across the Mediterranean in summer, they can turn deadly within minutes. Greece knows this all too well.
In 2018, a fast-moving blaze east of Athens killed more than 100 people. Five years after that tragedy, an enormous fire swept through a remote nature reserve, becoming the largest wildfire ever recorded in the European Union.
Now Greece is turning to space for answers. The country has deployed a dedicated constellation of satellites to monitor for fires — a first for any nation on Earth.
Four satellites, each smaller than a piece of carry-on luggage, were launched into low Earth orbit in May. The move made Greece the first country in the world to fully incorporate a dedicated satellite network into its national firefighting operations.
The satellites were built by German company OroraTech and are equipped with thermal sensors capable of detecting new fires as small as four meters — about 13 feet — across. That’s a major improvement over traditional satellites, which can only pick up fires roughly the size of a cruise ship.
As Europe endures another brutal heatwave, the risk of wildfires looms large. Greece faces a particularly difficult challenge, with its dry, mountainous terrain and more than 100 inhabited islands.
When a fire is detected, artificial intelligence processes the satellite data and sends an alert to fire commanders that already includes the fire’s location, size, and intensity. When multiple fires are burning simultaneously, that real-time information becomes critical for deciding where to send resources first.
Fire Service Col. Zisoula Ntasiou, who also serves as vice president of the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services, explained the system’s value to the Associated Press: “For example, if you have 10 fires all over Greece and the fire radiative power is lower in some cases, you will not give priority to those ignitions; you will give priority to other ones.”
The thermal sensors can also pick up heat from solar panels, factory rooftops, and sun-baked rock surfaces. However, AI models are designed to filter out those false signals before any alerts reach emergency responders, according to officials involved in the program.
Greece experienced its hottest summer on record in 2024, followed by its third-hottest last year.
Ioannis Lantouris, who heads OroraTech’s Greek operations, spoke with the AP from his Athens office, where engineers were actively working on fire behavior models and kept a full-scale replica of the satellite near their workstations. “The global temperature is going up. That causes fires to change in intensity and ferocity,” he said. “Our models have to change and adjust to that. They have to be faster. They have to be more precise.”
The satellite system adds another layer of detection on top of existing drones and ground sensors, which Greece expanded significantly following the 2018 disaster that prompted a complete overhaul of how the country handles wildfires. The constellation helps close coverage gaps left by international satellites, spots fires in hard-to-reach areas, and builds more detailed models of how fires spread.
While several countries use thermal satellites, Greece is the first to fully weave them into its firefighting infrastructure. And the current system is just the beginning of a larger effort backed by Europe.
Greece is now developing a broader observation network with three European companies. That network will combine thermal satellites, radar satellites that can see through clouds and smoke, and optical satellites that capture highly detailed ground imagery. The total cost is 200 million euros — roughly $227 million — funded by the European Union. Declining costs for satellite launches and manufacturing have made the expansion financially viable, and additional satellites are expected to be deployed before the end of the year.
Planners in Athens and across Europe are already looking ahead to applying similar networks for purposes far beyond fire detection — including border surveillance, crop monitoring, disaster response, and heat wave planning.
One key priority is identifying urban “heat islands,” which would allow authorities to better direct cooling centers and emergency services to the areas that need them most.
These ambitions are part of a broader strategic shift by European governments to reduce reliance on foreign technology. Unsettled by Russia’s war in Ukraine and growing strains in trans-Atlantic relations, Europe is pushing for greater independence in critical technologies, and space infrastructure has become a central piece of that effort.
Greece’s satellite network fits into a continent-wide initiative that links launch vehicles, navigation systems, Earth observation tools, and secure communications into a more self-sufficient technological framework.
The ultimate goal, officials say, is to move past using satellite imagery as a passive tool and instead develop near-real-time decision-making systems that help governments respond to crises as they unfold.
The coming Greek summer will serve as the system’s first real-world test.
