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Aidone fire, July 2022 Piazza Armerina, Aidone, Enna

Out · last detection 7 Jul 2022, 00:31 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2022 in Aidone, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,034 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Enna since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 2 in Italy in 2022, of 161.

Burnt area
1,034ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
2 Jul 2022 – 6 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
2 Jul
2022
Heat detections
85
in a single hotspot: 186 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

234567

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
54km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 846 ha in 2017, 65 ha in 2020, 26 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 876 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Piazza Armerina 20,642 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    480 ha reached on 2 Jul
    1.6 %
  2. Aidone 4,183 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town where it started
    344 ha reached on 2 Jul
    1.6 %
  3. Enna 6,837 inhabitants · 5.6 km from the town
    211 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.6 %

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

  • Coniferous forest74 %
  • Mixed forest17 %
  • Agricultural areas8.0 %
  • Other natural land1.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 95 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
2 Jul 38.3 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Jul 34.5 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Jul 34.9 °C 19 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Jul 36.7 °C 12 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Jul 35.4 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Jul after 35.9 °C 13 % 48 km/h 1.5 mm Very high 48
8 Jul after 31.2 °C 22 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Jul after 27.8 °C 27 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jul after 28.0 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Jul after 28.4 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
12 Jul after 30.3 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jul after 31.0 °C 16 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Jul after 29.3 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jul after 30.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jul after 31.4 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jul after 33.5 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2022
After · 13 Jul 2022

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 3 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1056 µg/m³
3012345678910
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)

Detections table · 85Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aidone fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 July 2022 and 6 July 2022: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,034 hectares (10.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Piazza Armerina (480 ha, 1.6 %); Aidone (344 ha, 1.6 %); Enna (211 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.2 km of Piazza Armerina. 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 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.
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.