The shocking satellite images of the fire that devastates the Greek island of Rhodes

The fires that are raging on the Greek island of Rhodes have been photographed by a satellite of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), in images that show both the flames and the extensive burned area and the plume of smoke that they cause.

The image, distributed this Monday by ESA and taken this Sunday by Sentinel-2, was processed by combining bands of natural colors with shortwave infrared information to highlight the fire front.

The burned expanse, which can be seen in brown tones, in the central part of the island, has a preliminary estimate of 11,000 hectares lost at the time of image acquisition, the ESA reported.

At least 19,000 people, including some 6,000 tourists, have been evacuated to escape the huge forest fire, which remains out of control for the seventh day. The evacuations have affected five towns that are located near the western coast of the island, located in the southeast Aegean, close to the Turkish coast.

Thousands of firefighters work to extinguish the more than 60 fires declared only this Sunday throughout the country, in the midst of a heat wave, in which temperatures are reaching above 46 degrees in some areas, the highest temperature ever recorded in the country. In addition to Rhodes, Corfu or Athens also suffer fires.

In response to the fires, the Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service was activated, which uses satellite observations to help civil protection authorities and, in disaster cases, the international humanitarian community, to respond to emergencies, ESA recalled.

The Sentinel-2 mission relies on a constellation of two identical satellites, each with an innovative high-resolution, broadband, multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands to monitor changes in Earth's land and vegetation.