Skip to content
worldfires
IT · Italy · →

Custonaci fire, August 2022 Custonaci, Castellammare del Golfo

Out · last measured on 5 Aug 2022

The fire started on 5 August 2022 in Custonaci, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 140 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 52th largest in Trapani since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 114 in Italy in 2022, of 161.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
140ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
5 Aug 2022 – 5 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
5 Aug
2022
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
28km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 8 Aug.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21 ha in 2017, 19 ha in 2019, 60 ha in 2020, 62 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 108 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Custonaci 5,274 inhabitants · 9.8 km from the town where it started
    138 ha
    2.0 %
  2. Castellammare del Golfo 14,610 inhabitants · 9.1 km from the town
    3 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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub81 %
  • Other natural land12 %
  • Coniferous forest5.7 %
  • Agricultural areas0.7 %

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)
5 Aug 30.8 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug after 31.3 °C 24 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Aug after 29.6 °C 39 % 38 km/h 0.6 mm High 31
8 Aug after 30.1 °C 43 % 38 km/h 2.1 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2022
After · 12 Aug 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 4 August 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
PM1025 µg/m³
Optical depth0.23
345678
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Custonaci fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 August 2022 and 5 August 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 140 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Custonaci (138 ha, 2.0 %); Castellammare del Golfo (3 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.1 km of Castellammare del Golfo. 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 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.