Bolognetta fire, August 2020 Bolognetta, Ventimiglia di Sicilia, Casteldaccia
The fire started on 20 August 2020 in Bolognetta, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 321 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 67th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 23 in Italy in 2020, of 140.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 321ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 11days
- 20 Aug 2020 – 30 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 19
- in a single hotspot: 141 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 100MW
- 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 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 31 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
256 ha reached on 29 Aug9.2 %
-
65 ha reached on 30 Aug2.4 %
-
Casteldaccia 11,585 inhabitants · 5.8 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
- Mixed forest47 %
- Other natural land27 %
- Agricultural areas26 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Aug | 28.6 °C | 56 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Aug | 29.0 °C | 61 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 22 Aug | 30.0 °C | 51 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 23 Aug | 28.9 °C | 61 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 24 Aug | 27.8 °C | 63 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 25 Aug | 27.4 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 26 Aug | 28.0 °C | 61 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 27 Aug | 28.5 °C | 53 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 28 Aug | 29.5 °C | 46 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 29 Aug | 31.3 °C | 47 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 30 Aug | 31.6 °C | 44 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 53 % | 42 km/h | 1.2 mm | Moderate 21 |
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 20 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 20 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 · 19Every 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 Bolognetta fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 August 2020 to 30 August 2020 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 August 2020 to 23 August 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 321 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bolognetta (256 ha, 9.2 %); Ventimiglia di Sicilia (65 ha, 2.4 %); Casteldaccia (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Bolognetta and came within 2.5 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 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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 20 August 2020 to 23 August 2020. 19 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.