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Custonaci fire, July 2022 Custonaci, San Vito Lo Capo

Out · last detection 8 Jul 2022, 00:12 UTC

The fire started on 7 July 2022 in Custonaci, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 197 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 40th largest in Trapani since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 67 in Italy in 2022, of 161.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.9 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
197ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
7 Jul 2022 – 8 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
7 Jul
2022
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
8MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jul8 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

8

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
52km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 133 ha in 2017, 14 ha in 2019, 18 ha in 2020, 116 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 196 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Custonaci 5,274 inhabitants · 10.4 km from the town where it started
    197 ha reached on 8 Jul
    2.8 %
  2. San Vito Lo Capo 4,814 inhabitants · 10.5 km from the town
    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 land62 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub23 %
  • Coniferous forest15 %

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)
7 Jul 31.6 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Jul 26.6 °C 48 % 52 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
9 Jul after 26.0 °C 38 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jul after 26.9 °C 34 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Jul after 27.6 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jul after 27.1 °C 40 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Jul after 28.3 °C 38 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jul after 28.5 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jul after 29.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Jul after 29.6 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Jul after 29.7 °C 40 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jul after 30.1 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jun 2022
After · 15 Jul 2022

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 7 July 2022 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
PM1055 µg/m³
567891011
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 · 6Every 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 7 July 2022 and 8 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 197 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Custonaci (197 ha, 2.8 %); San Vito Lo Capo (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 10.4 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 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.