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Cattolica Eraclea fire, July 2018 Cattolica Eraclea, Sant'Angelo Muxaro, Agrigento

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2018, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2018 in Cattolica Eraclea, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 359 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 54th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 8 in Italy in 2018, of 29.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.5 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…

Suggestions: Sant'Angelo Muxaro · 2016Cattolica Eraclea · 2025Cianciana · 2021Bivona · 2026

Burnt area
359ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
23 Jul 2018 – 23 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2018
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
69MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jul 2018 · 69 MW · 5

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
55km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 2 Aug.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 45 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cattolica Eraclea 3,300 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the centre where it started
    206 ha reached on 23 Jul
    3.3 %
  2. Sant'Angelo Muxaro 1,152 inhabitants · 7.1 km from the centre
    116 ha
    1.8 %
  3. Agrigento 55,512 inhabitants · 16.0 km from the centre
    37 ha
    0.2 %

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 land37 %
  • Agricultural areas32 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub28 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.8 %

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)
23 Jul 30.9 °C 32 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jul after 29.7 °C 42 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul after 30.2 °C 37 % 44 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
26 Jul after 31.0 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jul after 30.4 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Jul after 31.1 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jul after 33.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jul after 33.7 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Jul after 32.6 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
1 Aug after 31.1 °C 43 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm High 22
2 Aug after 31.2 °C 47 % 34 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2018
After · 30 Jul 2018

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 23 July 2018 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1047 µg/m³
212223242526
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 · 5Every 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 Cattolica Eraclea fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2018 and 23 July 2018: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 359 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cattolica Eraclea (206 ha, 3.3 %); Sant'Angelo Muxaro (116 ha, 1.8 %); Agrigento (37 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Cattolica Eraclea and came within 5.8 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 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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. 5 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.