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Bivona fire, July 2020 Bivona, Cianciana

Out · last measured on 2 Jul 2020

The fire started on 2 July 2020 in Bivona, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 112 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 256th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 113 in Italy in 2020, of 140.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bivona · 2018Cianciana · 2021Bivona · 2026Castronovo di Sicilia · 2026

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
112ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
2 Jul 2020 – 2 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
2 Jul
2020
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

30°high
37km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Bivona where it started
    75 ha
    0.8 %
  2. Cianciana 3,103 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the centre
    38 ha
    1.0 %

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 areas96 %
  • Other natural land4.4 %

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)
2 Jul 30.4 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jul after 32.7 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Jul after 31.0 °C 40 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jul after 29.0 °C 40 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Jul after 28.6 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Jul after 30.4 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
8 Jul after 27.2 °C 55 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Jul after 27.3 °C 48 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Jul after 27.1 °C 64 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
11 Jul after 28.2 °C 60 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 20
12 Jul after 31.0 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2020
After · 9 Jul 2020

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 2 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
3012345
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bivona fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 July 2020 and 2 July 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 112 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bivona (75 ha, 0.8 %); Cianciana (38 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 2.6 km of the centre of Cianciana, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.