Benna fire, March 2019 Benna, Cossato, Candelo
The fire started on 22 March 2019 in Benna, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 109 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
Number 88 in Italy in 2019, of 103.
- Burnt area
- 109ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 22 Mar 2019 – 23 Mar 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Mar
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 74MW
- sum of detected power
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 3 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
-
44 ha reached on 22 Mar4.7 %
-
Cossato 13,929 inhabitants · 4.2 km from the town37 ha reached on 23 Mar1.3 %
-
Candelo 7,228 inhabitants · 4.3 km from the town28 ha1.9 %
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
- Agricultural areas72 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland22 %
- Broadleaved forest6.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 30 %
- LIC Baraggia di Candelo IT1130003
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Mar | 18.9 °C | 28 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 23 Mar | 20.9 °C | 27 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 24 Mar after | 22.1 °C | 25 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 25 Mar after | 21.3 °C | 16 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 26 Mar after | 16.8 °C | 11 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Mar after | 14.8 °C | 28 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 28 Mar after | 15.3 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 29 Mar after | 17.6 °C | 29 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Mar after | 19.6 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 31 Mar after | 21.0 °C | 20 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 1 Apr after | 21.0 °C | 21 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 2 Apr after | 19.6 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.7 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 23 March 2019 the air beside the fire reached 59 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 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 · 5Every 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 Benna fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 22 March 2019 and 23 March 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 109 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Benna (44 ha, 4.7 %); Cossato (37 ha, 1.3 %); Candelo (28 ha, 1.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.7 km of Benna. 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 20.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 18 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
- 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
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.