Butera fire, 2 August 2023 Butera
The fire started on 2 August 2023 in Butera, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 303 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 34th largest in Caltanissetta since 2016 (of 149 with a page). Number 68 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Butera · 2017Butera · 2021Butera · 2022Butera · 2020
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
- 303ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 2 Aug 2023 – 3 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Aug
- 2023
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 5 Aug.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 170 ha in 2017, 10 ha in 2020, 133 ha in 2021, 51 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 243 ha that had burned before.
- 170 ha Butera fire, August 2017 216 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 133 ha Butera fire, July 2021 207 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 51 ha Butera fire, July 2022 355 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Butera fire, August 2020 161 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
304 ha1.0 %
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
- Other natural land73 %
- Agricultural areas27 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 31.2 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 41 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 37 % | 51 km/h | 3.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 3 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 14 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Butera fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 August 2023 to 3 August 2023 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 August 2023 to 3 August 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 303 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Butera (304 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Butera and came within 1.4 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 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very 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 3 August 2023 to 3 August 2023. 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.