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Custonaci fire, July 2020 Custonaci

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2020, 00:56 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2020 in Custonaci, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 228 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Trapani since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 42 in Italy in 2020, of 140.

The power measured by the satellite is low (2.6 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
228ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
20 Jul 2020 – 21 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jul
2020
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
17MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

21

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
45km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 49 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Custonaci 5,274 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town where it started
    228 ha reached on 21 Jul
    3.3 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub79 %
  • Other natural land21 %

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)
20 Jul 28.7 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Jul 30.1 °C 29 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Jul after 30.4 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul after 32.1 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jul after 31.9 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jul after 30.5 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jul after 30.3 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jul after 30.9 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jul after 32.0 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jul after 32.2 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul after 33.2 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Jul after 33.7 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2020
After · 28 Jul 2020

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 1 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
18192021222324252627282930311
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 Custonaci fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2020 and 21 July 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 228 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Custonaci (228 ha, 3.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.0 km of Custonaci. 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 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 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

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.