Licata fire, 2 July 2021 Licata, Palma di Montechiaro
The fire started on 2 July 2021 in Licata, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 190 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 134th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 162 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
Compare with…
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
- 190ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 2 Jul 2021 – 2 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Jul
- 2021
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2016, 128 ha in 2017, 121 ha in 2018, 42 ha in 2019, 142 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 164 ha that had burned before.
- 137 ha Palma di Montechiaro fire, June 2020 210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 128 ha Licata fire, August 2017 326 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 121 ha Palma di Montechiaro fire, July 2018 306 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13 ha Camastra fire, July 2016 181 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4 ha Naro fire, July 2019 243 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
148 ha0.8 %
-
Palma di Montechiaro 21,373 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town43 ha0.6 %
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 land70 %
- Agricultural areas30 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jul | 32.4 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Jul after | 33.1 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Jul after | 32.3 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Jul after | 33.5 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 Jul after | 30.9 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 39 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Jul after | 34.2 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Jul after | 32.3 °C | 38 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Jul after | 32.7 °C | 26 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Jul after | 33.5 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Jul after | 32.0 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
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 30 June 2021 the air beside the fire reached 45 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Licata fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 2 July 2021 and 2 July 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 190 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Licata (148 ha, 0.8 %); Palma di Montechiaro (43 ha, 0.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.6 km of Palma di Montechiaro. 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 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- 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.