Guamaggiore fire, June 2024 Guasila, Guamaggiore, Gesico
The fire started on 20 June 2024 in Guamaggiore, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 510 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Sud Sardegna since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 7 in Italy in 2024, of 112.
The power measured by the satellite is low (1.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 510ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 20 Jun 2024 – 21 Jun 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 20 Jun
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 1 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
21 Jun 2024 · 1 MW · 1
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2023.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Rome boundary: geoBoundaries · ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics (CC BY 3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Guasila 2,480 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the centre260 ha6.0 %
-
249 ha reached on 21 Jun15 %
-
Gesico 739 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the centre2 ha0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Agricultural areas76 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub17 %
- Broadleaved forest7.1 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 57 %
- LIC Monte San Mauro ITB042237
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.
Several official records match this area
According to CFVA Sardegna, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 472 ha (the satellite measured 510 ha).
CFVA Sardegna records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Guamaggiore Barru 20 June 2024 432 ha
- 2 Guasila Murtaxiu 20 June 2024 40 ha
Total according to CFVA Sardegna: 472 ha, 93 % of the 510 ha in the satellite perimeter.
Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, Corpo Forestale e di Vigilanza Ambientale: perimetri delle aree percorse dal fuoco (CC BY 4.0). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
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 Jun | 33.2 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 21 Jun | 29.0 °C | 45 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Jun after | 26.9 °C | 41 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Jun after | 26.2 °C | 46 % | 53 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 22 |
| 24 Jun after | 24.6 °C | 50 % | 47 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 22 |
| 25 Jun after | 24.5 °C | 45 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 26 Jun after | 27.7 °C | 41 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 27 Jun after | 30.6 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jun after | 33.6 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Jun after | 32.0 °C | 33 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 30 Jun after | 31.3 °C | 33 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 20 June 2024 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Guamaggiore fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 June 2024 to 21 June 2024 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 June 2024 to 20 June 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 510 hectares (5.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Guasila (260 ha, 6.0 %); Guamaggiore (249 ha, 15 %); Gesico (2 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.5 km of the centre of Guasila, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 June 2024 to 20 June 2024. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection on those dates.
- Compared with CFVA Sardegna: 472 official ha against 510 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.