Altamura fire, 13 August 2026 Altamura
The fire started on 13 August 2026 in Altamura, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 347 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 5th largest in Bari since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 60 in Italy in 2026, of 231.
The power measured by the satellite is low (29.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 347ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 1day
- 13 Aug 2026 – 13 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 29 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 151MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
13 Aug 2026 · 151 MW · 9
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 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
347 ha reached on 13 Aug0.8 %
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
- Other natural land96 %
- Agricultural areas3.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA + LIC Murgia Alta IT9120007
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Aug | 32.5 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 14 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 16 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Aug after | 34.3 °C | 24 % | 39 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 51 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 34 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Aug after | 37.1 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 22 Aug after | 34.0 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 13 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,300 haAltamuraJuly 2026 · 1 day · 11 km away
- 3,455 haGravina in Puglia25 August 2026 · 5 days · 13 km away
- 1,059 haGravina in PugliaJuly 2021 · 5 days · 15 km away
- 1,309 haGravina in PugliaAugust 2017 · 5 days · 18 km away
- 571 haIrsinaJuly 2025 · 1 day · 21 km away
- 753 haMinervino Murge15 July 2026 · 6 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Altamura fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (13 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 13 August 2026 (1 day from 13 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 347 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Altamura (347 ha, 0.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Altamura and came within 9.8 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 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 9 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.
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.