Catania fire, 30 July 2021 Catania, Belpasso
The fire started on 30 July 2021 in Catania, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 317 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Catania since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 86 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
The power measured by the satellite is low (20.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 317ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 30 Jul 2021 – 31 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 30 Jul
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 14
- in a single hotspot: 20 MW
- Danger at start
- 61
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 108MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
31 Jul 2021 · 108 MW · 14
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 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68 ha in 2018, 41 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 83 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
318 ha reached on 31 Jul1.7 %
-
0 ha0.0 %
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 land cover81 %
- Agricultural areas19 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 87 %
- ZEPA Biviere di Lentini, tratto mediano e foce del Fiume Simeto e area antistante la foce ITA070029
- LIC Foce del Fiume Simeto e Lago Gornalunga ITA070001
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jul | 40.4 °C | 18 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 31 Jul | 38.0 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Aug after | 39.8 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Aug after | 39.1 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Aug after | 37.8 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 Aug after | 41.1 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 5 Aug after | 38.5 °C | 24 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Aug after | 35.1 °C | 29 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 7 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Aug after | 39.3 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Aug after | 42.1 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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 2 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily 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 · 14Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Catania fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2021 and 31 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 317 hectares (3.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Catania (318 ha, 1.7 %); Belpasso (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 11.1 km of Catania. 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 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.
- 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
Satellite cross-check
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. 14 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.
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.