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Licata fire, 22 July 2021 Campobello di Licata, Licata, Ravanusa

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2021, 12:37 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2021 in Licata, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 412 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 43th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 65 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.4 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
412ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
22 Jul 2021 – 23 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
22 Jul
2021
Heat detections
13
in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
65MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jul 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2223

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
35km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 139 ha in 2019, 53 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 142 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Campobello di Licata 9,062 inhabitants · 4.8 km from the town
    227 ha reached on 23 Jul
    2.8 %
  2. Licata 34,287 inhabitants · 7.9 km from the town where it started
    176 ha reached on 22 Jul
    1.0 %
  3. Ravanusa 10,349 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the town
    10 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas58 %
  • Other natural land42 %

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)
22 Jul 34.5 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
23 Jul 32.2 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Jul after 32.5 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jul after 31.7 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jul after 31.0 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jul after 33.0 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jul after 35.6 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul after 37.0 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jul after 35.5 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul after 35.8 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Aug after 36.7 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Aug after 37.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2021
After · 30 Jul 2021

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 24 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1025 µg/m³
20212223242526
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 · 13Every 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 Licata fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 July 2021 and 23 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 412 hectares (4.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Campobello di Licata (227 ha, 2.8 %); Licata (176 ha, 1.0 %); Ravanusa (10 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.8 km of Campobello di Licata. 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 35 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.