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Corato fire, July 2024 Corato, Ruvo di Puglia

Out · last detection 9 Jul 2024, 12:50 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2024 in Corato, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 282 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Bari since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 27 in Italy in 2024, of 112.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.5 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
282ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
9 Jul 2024 – 9 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
9 Jul
2024
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
98MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

9

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
37km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Corato 47,033 inhabitants · 13.6 km from the town where it started
    282 ha reached on 9 Jul
    1.7 %
  2. Ruvo di Puglia
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 natural land93 %
  • Agricultural areas6.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
9 Jul 32.3 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jul after 32.7 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Jul after 33.7 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jul after 34.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jul after 36.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jul after 33.7 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul after 34.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
16 Jul after 34.9 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Jul after 35.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Jul after 34.7 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jul after 33.5 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2024
After · 16 Jul 2024

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 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.43
789101112
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 · 10Every 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 Corato fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2024 and 9 July 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 282 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Corato (282 ha, 1.7 %); Ruvo di Puglia (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.6 km of Corato. 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 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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

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.