Poggio Imperiale fire, October 2026 Apricena, San Severo, Lesina
Satellites first detected fire on 3 October 2026 in Poggio Imperiale, Italy. It was active for 5 days, with 20 heat detections and an area with fire of about 266 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 9 municipalities.
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.
Compare with…
Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
- Area with fire
- ≈ 266ha
- rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Oct 2026 – 7 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 9
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 20
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 13
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 24MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 8 Oct.
What happened to each town
-
Apricena 12,575 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre154 ha reached on 3 Oct0.9 %
-
San Severo 49,328 inhabitants · 5.9 km from the centre70 ha reached on 3 Oct0.2 %
-
Lesina 2,471 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the centre28 ha reached on 3 Oct0.2 %
-
San Paolo di Civitate 5,460 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre14 ha reached on 4 Oct0.2 %
-
San Nicandro Garganico 13,779 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the centre0 ha reached on 5 Oct0.0 %
-
Torremaggiore 16,514 inhabitants · 8.8 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
-
Serracapriola 3,656 inhabitants · 7.5 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
-
0 ha reached on 3 Oct0.0 %
-
Rignano Garganico 1,817 inhabitants · 7.0 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Oct | 23.5 °C | 53 % | 33 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 4 Oct | 23.2 °C | 50 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 5 Oct | 23.5 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 6 Oct | 23.6 °C | 46 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 7 Oct | 26.3 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 8 Oct after | 24.3 °C | 64 % | 40 km/h | 1.7 mm | Low 6 |
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 1 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 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 · 20Every 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 Poggio Imperiale fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 3 October 2026 to 7 October 2026 (5 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
- How much area did it burn?
- There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 266 hectares with fire (2.7 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 9 municipalities: Apricena (154 ha, 0.9 %); San Severo (70 ha, 0.2 %); Lesina (28 ha, 0.2 %); San Paolo di Civitate (14 ha, 0.2 %); San Nicandro Garganico (0 ha, 0.0 %); Torremaggiore (0 ha, 0.0 %); Serracapriola (0 ha, 0.0 %); Poggio Imperiale (0 ha, 0.0 %); Rignano Garganico (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Poggio Imperiale fire still active?
- No fire detections since 7 Oct 2026, 12:53 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 1.2 km of the centre of Apricena, 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 26.3 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
- 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
- No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 266 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
- Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 20 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- 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.