Licata fire, June 2022 Licata, Palma di Montechiaro
The fire started on 25 June 2022 in Licata, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 236th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 134 in Italy in 2022, of 161.
The power measured by the satellite is low (0.7 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
- 120ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 25 Jun 2022 – 26 Jun 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Jun
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 2
- in a single hotspot: 1 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1MW
- sum of detected power
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 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 59 ha in 2016, 82 ha in 2017, 93 ha in 2018, 21 ha in 2019, 84 ha in 2020, 59 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 107 ha that had burned before.
- 93 ha Palma di Montechiaro fire, July 2018 306 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 84 ha Palma di Montechiaro fire, June 2020 210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 82 ha Licata fire, August 2017 326 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 59 ha Camastra fire, July 2016 181 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 36 ha Licata fire, July 2021 190 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 23 ha Naro fire, June 2021 275 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
120 ha reached on 26 Jun0.7 %
-
Palma di Montechiaro 21,373 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the town1 ha0.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas69 %
- Other natural land31 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jun | 34.2 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Jun | 34.2 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Jun after | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 Jun after | 34.9 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Jun after | 32.8 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 30 Jun after | 32.7 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Jul after | 32.4 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Jul after | 33.0 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Jul after | 34.2 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Jul after | 33.9 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Jul after | 35.5 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 Jul after | 36.0 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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 27 June 2022 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 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 · 2Every 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 Licata fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 June 2022 and 26 June 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Licata (120 ha, 0.7 %); Palma di Montechiaro (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.0 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 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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.