Aliminusa fire, July 2023 Cerda, Aliminusa, Sclafani Bagni
The fire started on 24 July 2023 in Aliminusa, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,862 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 3 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,862ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 24 Jul 2023 – 26 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 104
- in a single hotspot: 147 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 918MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 4 Aug.
This area had burned before
20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 401 ha in 2020, 179 ha in 2021.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Rome boundary: geoBoundaries · ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics (CC BY 3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Cerda 4,923 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre1,645 ha reached on 24 Jul38 %
-
589 ha reached on 24 Jul43 %
-
Sclafani Bagni 375 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the centre583 ha reached on 25 Jul4.3 %
-
Montemaggiore Belsito 2,949 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre47 ha reached on 25 Jul1.5 %
-
Scillato 591 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the centre3 ha0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Agricultural areas54 %
- Broadleaved forest18 %
- Mixed forest15 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub11 %
- Other natural land1.0 %
- Other land cover0.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 36 %
- ZEPA + LIC Boschi di Granza ITA020032
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 3.5 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 25 Jul | 37.5 °C | 22 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 26 Jul | 27.9 °C | 49 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Jul after | 27.3 °C | 44 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jul after | 30.7 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jul after | 30.2 °C | 47 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 30 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 31 Jul after | 30.7 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 1 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 4 Aug after | 30.7 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 3.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 25 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 104Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Aliminusa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 July 2023 to 26 July 2023 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 July 2023 to 25 July 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,862 hectares (28.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Cerda (1,645 ha, 38 %); Aliminusa (589 ha, 43 %); Sclafani Bagni (583 ha, 4.3 %); Montemaggiore Belsito (47 ha, 1.5 %); Scillato (3 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Aliminusa and came within 0.5 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 25 July 2023 → 26 July 2023.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 July 2023 to 25 July 2023. 104 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.