Arpaia fire, August 2021 Airola, Arpaia, Forchia
The fire started on 13 August 2021 in Arpaia, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 360 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Benevento since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 76 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
The power measured by the satellite is low (11.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 360ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 13 Aug 2021 – 17 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 13MW
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 20 Aug.
This area had burned before
67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 120 ha in 2017, 84 ha in 2019, 67 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 242 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Airola 8,106 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre115 ha7.7 %
-
108 ha reached on 15 Aug22 %
-
Forchia 1,217 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre77 ha reached on 15 Aug14 %
-
Moiano 4,013 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the centre46 ha reached on 16 Aug2.3 %
-
Arienzo 5,307 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the centre14 ha1.0 %
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 land85 %
- Agricultural areas11 %
- Broadleaved forest4.1 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Aug | 32.8 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 16 Aug | 30.2 °C | 40 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Aug | 28.5 °C | 55 % | 37 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Aug after | 28.8 °C | 46 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 19 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 24 |
| 20 Aug after | 29.3 °C | 40 % | 31 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 10 |
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 15 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 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 · 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 352 haSan Felice a CancelloJuly 2017 · 4 days · 7 km away
- 380 haValle di MaddaloniJuly 2017 · 5 days · 12 km away
- 356 haCasertaAugust 2017 · 6 days · 15 km away
- 496 haCasagioveJuly 2017 · 6 days · 21 km away
- 607 haCasertaAugust 2021 · 5 days · 22 km away
- 542 haPiana di Monte VernaAugust 2024 · 2 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Arpaia fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 August 2021 to 17 August 2021 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 August 2021 to 17 August 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 360 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Airola (115 ha, 7.7 %); Arpaia (108 ha, 22 %); Forchia (77 ha, 14 %); Moiano (46 ha, 2.3 %); Arienzo (14 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Arpaia and came within 0.6 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 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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 · 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 August 2021 to 17 August 2021. 7 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 2020, 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.