Skip to content
worldfires
IT · Italy · →

Cinisi fire, July 2023 Cinisi, Carini, Terrasini

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2023, 00:33 UTC

The fire started on 24 July 2023 in Cinisi, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 605 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 29 in Italy in 2023, of 207.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
605ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
24 Jul 2023 – 26 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
24 Jul
2023
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
177MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

242526

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
60km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.7 mm on 4 Aug.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Cinisi 11,936 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the town where it started
    333 ha reached on 24 Jul
    10 %
  2. Carini 39,773 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the town
    190 ha reached on 24 Jul
    2.5 %
  3. Terrasini 12,833 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the town
    82 ha reached on 24 Jul
    4.2 %

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 natural land75 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub25 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 94 %

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)
24 Jul 41.1 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Jul 39.6 °C 23 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
26 Jul 29.7 °C 39 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Jul after 29.4 °C 41 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Jul after 32.4 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
29 Jul after 31.2 °C 54 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jul after 33.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Jul after 33.0 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Aug after 31.1 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Aug after 31.4 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Aug after 32.3 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Aug after 33.1 °C 33 % 39 km/h 5.7 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jul 2023
After · 2 Aug 2023

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 26 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 64 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak64 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1061 µg/m³
Optical depth1.11
2223242526272829
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 · 18Every 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 Cinisi fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2023 and 26 July 2023: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 605 hectares (6.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cinisi (333 ha, 10 %); Carini (190 ha, 2.5 %); Terrasini (82 ha, 4.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.7 km of Terrasini. 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 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 60 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
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.

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.