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Badolato fire, August 2021 Badolato, Isca sullo Ionio

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2021, 23:53 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2021 in Badolato, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 581 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Catanzaro since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 43 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

Burnt area
581ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
3 Aug 2021 – 6 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
3 Aug
2021
Heat detections
53
in a single hotspot: 202 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
589MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

36

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
51km/h · peak gust
46%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 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

  1. Badolato 2,843 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town where it started
    547 ha reached on 1 Aug
    15 %
  2. Isca sullo Ionio 1,691 inhabitants · 5.6 km from the town
    36 ha reached on 6 Aug
    1.5 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest76 %
  • Agricultural areas14 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland10 %

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)
3 Aug 27.6 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Aug 27.0 °C 59 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Aug 26.1 °C 61 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
6 Aug 23.3 °C 60 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Aug after 24.8 °C 55 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
8 Aug after 25.9 °C 61 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Aug after 28.4 °C 46 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Aug after 29.8 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Aug after 29.4 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Aug after 27.3 °C 58 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
13 Aug after 27.2 °C 58 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
14 Aug after 26.5 °C 61 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Aug after 26.5 °C 58 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
16 Aug after 26.8 °C 59 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2021
After · 13 Aug 2021

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 1 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak50 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1069 µg/m³
303112345678910111213141516
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 · 53Every 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 Badolato fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2021 and 6 August 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 581 hectares (5.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Badolato (547 ha, 15 %); Isca sullo Ionio (36 ha, 1.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.9 km of Badolato. 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 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 46 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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.