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Casteltermini fire, 16 August 2016 Casteltermini, Cammarata

Out · last measured on 16 Aug 2016

The fire started on 16 August 2016 in Casteltermini, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 119 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 241th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 66 in Italy in 2016, of 78.

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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
119ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
16 Aug 2016 – 16 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
16 Aug
2016
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

30°high
35km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 25 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Casteltermini 7,269 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre where it started
    95 ha
    1.0 %
  2. Cammarata
    24 ha
    0.1 %

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

  • Agricultural areas81 %
  • Other natural land19 %

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)
16 Aug 29.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug after 29.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug after 30.5 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 33.0 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 33.5 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Aug after 34.3 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug after 33.4 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Aug after 27.7 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.6 mm High 35
24 Aug after 28.7 °C 40 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Aug after 30.5 °C 40 % 38 km/h 3.4 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2016
After · 23 Aug 2016

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 16 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1021 µg/m³
141516171819
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 Casteltermini fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 August 2016 and 16 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Casteltermini (95 ha, 1.0 %); Cammarata (24 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Casteltermini and came within 1.9 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 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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.