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IT · Italy · –

Casteltermini fire, 12 September 2022 Casteltermini, San Biagio Platani

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2022, 00:57 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2022 in Casteltermini, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 295 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 76th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 41 in Italy in 2022, of 161.

Burnt area
295ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
12 Sept 2022 – 13 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
12 Sept
2022
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Average daily power
117MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept13 Sept
13 Sept 2022

How it evolved, day by day

12 Sept 2022 · 232 MW · 9 13 Sept 2022 · 2 MW · 2
12 Sept 13 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
34km/h · peak gust
45%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 21 Sept.

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 · 7.4 km from the centre where it started
    219 ha reached on 12 Sept
    2.2 %
  2. San Biagio Platani 2,860 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre
    77 ha reached on 12 Sept
    1.8 %

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 land47 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub26 %
  • Agricultural areas26 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.4 %

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)
12 Sept 29.3 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Sept 28.5 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
14 Sept after 28.2 °C 59 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Sept after 28.8 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Sept after 29.0 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Sept after 28.6 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept after 27.7 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Sept after 26.7 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Sept after 28.0 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Sept after 27.1 °C 52 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm High 26

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 24.5, a minimum humidity of 52% and 14 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 26.

FWI at the start 24.5
Minimum humidity 52 %
Days without rain 14
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Calamonaci fire, July 2018
292 ha 1 day FWI 22.9 Min. humidity 52 % 17 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
174 ha
median area
4 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 26 had it)

It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 3 days.

Only 4 of its 26 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 13 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.0 mmfirst rain
21 Sept8 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Sept, and on 21 Sept 1.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 26, with a median of 5.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2022
After · 20 Sept 2022

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 10 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1042 µg/m³
Optical depth0.55
10 Sept12 Sept14 Sept16 Sept
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 · 11Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Casteltermini fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 September 2022 and 13 September 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 295 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Casteltermini (219 ha, 2.2 %); San Biagio Platani (77 ha, 1.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 3.3 km of the centre of San Biagio Platani, 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 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 45 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 26. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 174 ha; 4 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 26 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 13 of 26, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.2 mm.

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.

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. 11 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.