Several forest fires have occurred since August 21, 2009 in the prefecture Attica, north-eastern of Athens, Greece. The fires, fanned by strong winds, destroyed thousands of hectares of forest land, farming fields and olive groves. Many residents had to be evacuated from their homes. ZKI/DLR is monitoring continuously the fire situation in Europe with the help of MODIS Fire Information System. Thereby ZKI uses the ground stations of the German Remote Sensing Data Center and processes the data automatically.