Skip to content
worldfires
en
IT · Italy · →

Burgio fire, May 2021 Burgio, Palazzo Adriano

Out · last measured on 15 May 2021

The fire started on 15 May 2021 in Burgio, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 107 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 272th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 279 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Burgio · 2020Bivona · 2026Campofiorito · 2017Castronovo 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
107ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
15 May 2021 – 15 May 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
15 May
2021
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

15°high
47km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2019, 86 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Burgio 2,497 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the centre where it started
    106 ha
    2.5 %
  2. Palazzo Adriano 1,814 inhabitants · 8.1 km from the centre
    1 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Coniferous forest89 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland10 %
  • Mixed forest0.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
15 May 15.2 °C 48 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
16 May after 15.1 °C 48 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
17 May after 17.4 °C 57 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
18 May after 18.2 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
19 May after 17.1 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
20 May after 15.5 °C 54 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 11
21 May after 14.3 °C 56 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
22 May after 15.7 °C 64 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
23 May after 17.6 °C 45 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
24 May after 19.8 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
25 May after 19.5 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 May 2021
After · 22 May 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 14 May 2021 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
131415161718
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 Burgio fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 15 May 2021 and 15 May 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 107 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Burgio (106 ha, 2.5 %); Palazzo Adriano (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Burgio and came within 2.9 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 15.2 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 47 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 · 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.