Butera fire, July 2020 Butera, Gela
The fire started on 4 July 2020 in Butera, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 113 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 134th largest in Caltanissetta since 2016 (of 149 with a page). Number 112 in Italy in 2020, of 140.
Compare with…
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
- 113ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 4 Jul 2020 – 4 Jul 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Jul
- 2020
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.0 mm on 14 Jul.
This area had burned before
31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 35 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
107 ha0.4 %
-
Gela 70,109 inhabitants · 11.3 km from the centre6 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
- Sclerophyllous scrub39 %
- Other natural land38 %
- Agricultural areas24 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Jul | 32.0 °C | 39 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Jul after | 29.9 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Jul after | 27.6 °C | 54 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 9 Jul after | 27.3 °C | 52 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Jul after | 28.2 °C | 52 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Jul after | 29.0 °C | 54 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Jul after | 29.5 °C | 43 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 62 % | 35 km/h | 5.0 mm | Very low 5 |
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 2 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Butera fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 July 2020 and 4 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 113 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Butera (107 ha, 0.4 %); Gela (6 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Butera 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 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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 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.
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.