Live wildfire map — active fires and burnt area across Europe

How the smoke layer is measured. Copernicus CAMS PM2.5 and carbon monoxide, well above the local background rather than above a fixed number. CO is a combustion tracer — dust and sea salt do not produce it, so it separates smoke from a Saharan calima on chemistry rather than on proximity to a fire. Measuring against the surrounding air is what lets the same rule work in Andalusia and in Ireland, where clean-air aerosol differs roughly twofold. It is an observation of combustion aerosol, not attribution to a particular fire: smoke travels hundreds of kilometres. It is not an air-quality index — the PM2.5 layer is the one to read for that.

Sources: Active fire detections: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS/MODIS) · Burnt area: Copernicus EMS — EFFIS

Smoke-layer accuracy: Checked against AERONET ground instruments, which measure the same quantity directly: correlation 0.82, mean error 0.056 AOD across 3,117 station-hours at 10 stations over 30 days. The layer is bias-corrected onto that measured scale.