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Caltanissetta fire, 20 July 2017 Caltanissetta, Santa Caterina Villarmosa

Out · last measured on 21 Jul 2017

The fire started on 20 July 2017 in Caltanissetta, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 140 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 101th largest in Caltanissetta since 2016 (of 149 with a page). Number 253 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Resuttano · 2026Piazza Armerina · 2017Enna · 2021Madonie · 2021

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
140ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
20 Jul 2017 – 21 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
20 Jul
2017
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
40km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Caltanissetta 4,673 inhabitants · 6.1 km from the centre where it started
    108 ha
    0.3 %
  2. Santa Caterina Villarmosa
    33 ha
    0.4 %

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 land82 %
  • Agricultural areas18 %

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 Jul 30.9 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jul 31.9 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Jul after 33.7 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jul after 37.4 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Jul after 36.1 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Jul after 30.7 °C 25 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Jul after 28.0 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jul after 28.5 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul after 31.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul after 32.5 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jul after 33.6 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul after 33.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2017
After · 28 Jul 2017

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 24 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1050 µg/m³
18192021222324
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 Caltanissetta fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2017 and 21 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 140 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Caltanissetta (108 ha, 0.3 %); Santa Caterina Villarmosa (33 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Caltanissetta and came within 6.1 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 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

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.