How long did the Carini fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 5 August 2021 and 5 August 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 165 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Carini (166 ha, 2.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.3 km of Carini. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.

IT · Italy · 2021-08-05 → 2021-08-05

Carini fire, August 2021 Carini

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2021, 11:53 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2021 in Carini, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 165 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 127th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 177 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 165ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 5 Aug 2021 – 5 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 5 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 10; in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 31MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

30°high

36km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 30 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Carini 39,773 inhabitants · 5.3 km from the town where it started

166 ha reached on 5 Aug

2.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Other natural land96 %
Agricultural areas4.3 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 92 %

LIC Montagna Longa, Pizzo Montanello ITA020021
ZEPA Monte Pecoraro e Pizzo Cirina ITA020049

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)
5 Aug	30.4 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Aug after	30.9 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
7 Aug after	33.0 °C	26 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
8 Aug after	34.4 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Aug after	35.5 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Aug after	37.3 °C	17 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Aug after	38.5 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
12 Aug after	34.3 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
13 Aug after	34.1 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
14 Aug after	33.1 °C	36 %	28 km/h	0.5 mm	High 32
15 Aug after	32.2 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 29 Jul 2021

After · 12 Aug 2021

Before After

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 5 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1045 µg/m³

WHO 15

345678

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)

Detections table · 10Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Carini fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 5 August 2021 and 5 August 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 165 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Carini (166 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.3 km of Carini. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

Protezione Civile ↗
Carabinieri Forestali (1515) ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

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.

Where it burned