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Caltagirone fire, 9 July 2025 Caltagirone, Niscemi

Out · last measured on 9 Jul 2025

The fire started on 9 July 2025 in Caltagirone, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 146 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 50th largest in Catania since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 141 in Italy in 2025, of 216.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Niscemi · 2025Butera · 2026Piazza Armerina · 2017Enna · 2021

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
146ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
9 Jul 2025 – 9 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
9 Jul
2025
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Natura 2000
3%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

33°high
38km/h · peak gust
37%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2018, 49 ha in 2020, 5 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 50 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Caltagirone 35,765 inhabitants · 6.5 km from the centre where it started
    143 ha
    0.4 %
  2. Niscemi 24,934 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the centre
    4 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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub55 %
  • Agricultural areas45 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 3 %

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)
9 Jul 32.8 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Jul after 30.8 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Jul after 30.2 °C 31 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jul after 30.6 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul after 32.2 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jul after 36.1 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Jul after 35.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jul after 35.6 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jul after 34.2 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Jul after 31.9 °C 52 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Jul after 33.5 °C 53 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2025
After · 16 Jul 2025

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 7 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1017 µg/m³
Optical depth0.23
789101112
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 Caltagirone fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2025 and 9 July 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 146 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Caltagirone (143 ha, 0.4 %); Niscemi (4 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 6.0 km of the centre of Niscemi, 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 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.