Bagaladi fire, July 2025 Bagaladi, Montebello Jonico, Reggio di Calabria
The fire started on 23 July 2025 in Bagaladi, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 445 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Reggio di Calabria since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 30 in Italy in 2025, of 216.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.6 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
- 445ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 23 Jul 2025 – 26 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 18MW
- 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 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 30 Jul.
This area had burned before
43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 83 ha in 2017, 9 ha in 2020, 131 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 190 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
433 ha reached on 23 Jul15 %
-
Montebello Jonico 5,697 inhabitants · 5.1 km from the centre13 ha0.2 %
-
Reggio di Calabria 170,951 inhabitants · 14.4 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas41 %
- Mixed forest26 %
- Broadleaved forest18 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
- Other natural land2.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 17 %
- LIC Monte Embrisi e Monte Torrione IT9350181
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul | 28.6 °C | 36 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 24 Jul | 29.6 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Jul | 32.1 °C | 28 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Jul | 31.7 °C | 36 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Jul after | 25.3 °C | 52 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Jul after | 25.2 °C | 48 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Jul after | 23.2 °C | 52 % | 53 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Jul after | 23.4 °C | 58 % | 28 km/h | 1.3 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 27 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 17 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 · 12Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,088 haReggio di Calabria27 July 2021 · 8 days · 4 km away
- 7,096 haBagaladi4 August 2021 · 6 days · 8 km away
- 894 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 3,114 haMotta San GiovanniJuly 2023 · 6 days · 10 km away
- 911 haReggio di Calabria5 July 2017 · 9 days · 13 km away
- 1,199 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 15 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bagaladi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 July 2025 to 26 July 2025 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 July 2025 to 24 July 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 445 hectares (4.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bagaladi (433 ha, 15 %); Montebello Jonico (13 ha, 0.2 %); Reggio di Calabria (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Bagaladi and came within 1.8 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 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.
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 23 July 2025 to 24 July 2025. 12 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.