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Agrigento fire, 17 July 2023 Agrigento

Out · last measured on 17 Jul 2023

The fire started on 17 July 2023 in Agrigento, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 117 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 248th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 182 in Italy in 2023, of 207.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
117ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
17 Jul 2023 – 17 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
17 Jul
2023
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

36°high
24km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Agrigento 55,512 inhabitants · 14.7 km from the town where it started
    117 ha
    0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Other natural land87 %
  • Agricultural areas13 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
17 Jul 36.2 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Jul after 38.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jul after 36.1 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jul after 37.6 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jul after 36.2 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul after 37.4 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jul after 37.7 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul after 37.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul after 37.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jul after 31.9 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul after 31.6 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 10 Jul 2023
After · 24 Jul 2023

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 17 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1048 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
151617181920
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Agrigento fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 July 2023 and 17 July 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 117 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Agrigento (117 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 14.7 km of Agrigento. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Italy (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 112 · 1515

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112 · 1515.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM4 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.