Casteldaccia fire, October 2026 Casteldaccia, Altavilla Milicia
The fire started on 21 October 2026 in Casteldaccia, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 183 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 116th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 121 in Italy in 2026, of 232.
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- Burnt area
- 183ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 21 Oct 2026 – 21 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 0
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 94%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
21 Oct 2026 · 0 MW · 0
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 24 Oct.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 178 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
144 ha reached on 21 Oct4.2 %
-
Altavilla Milicia 8,668 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre39 ha reached on 21 Oct1.6 %
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 land45 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub33 %
- Agricultural areas22 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 94 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Oct | 24.0 °C | 57 % | 53 km/h | 4.4 mm | Very low 1 |
| 22 Oct after | 21.7 °C | 49 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Oct after | 21.0 °C | 56 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 24 Oct after | 21.1 °C | 50 % | 40 km/h | 2.0 mm | Very low 1 |
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 21 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 13 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)
Detections table · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,867 haMonreale29 July 2021 · 4 days · 20 km away
- 2,265 haCampofelice di FitaliaJuly 2026 · 2 days · 25 km away
- 3,728 haMonreale24 July 2023 · 3 days · 26 km away
- 2,862 haAliminusaJuly 2023 · 3 days · 29 km away
- 2,823 haGratteriSeptember 2023 · 3 days · 37 km away
- 3,436 haCefalùJune 2016 · 3 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Casteldaccia fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 21 October 2026 and 21 October 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 183 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Casteldaccia (144 ha, 4.2 %); Altavilla Milicia (39 ha, 1.6 %).
- Is the Casteldaccia fire still active?
- No fire detections since 21 Oct 2026, 02:06 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.2 km of the centre of Altavilla Milicia, 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 24.0 °C, humidity dropped to 57 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very low.
- 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 27 October 2026.
- Page published (183 ha).
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: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.