Licata fire, 15 July 2025 Licata
The fire started on 15 July 2025 in Licata, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 227 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 110th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 82 in Italy in 2025, of 216.
The power measured by the satellite is low (0.9 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
- 227ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 15 Jul 2025 – 16 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 3
- in a single hotspot: 1 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2MW
- 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 21 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: 152 ha in 2019, 134 ha in 2021, 150 ha in 2022, 8 ha in 2023, 141 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 203 ha that had burned before.
- 152 ha Licata fire, August 2019 280 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 150 ha Licata fire, July 2022 202 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 136 ha Licata fire, July 2024 179 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 133 ha Licata fire, August 2021 267 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
228 ha reached on 15 Jul1.3 %
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 land69 %
- Agricultural areas31 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jul | 36.4 °C | 26 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Jul | 36.7 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Jul after | 34.5 °C | 40 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Jul after | 32.6 °C | 52 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 19 Jul after | 32.5 °C | 55 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Jul after | 33.4 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Jul after | 36.6 °C | 40 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 22 Jul after | 41.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Jul after | 38.5 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Jul after | 39.0 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Jul after | 39.9 °C | 23 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 26 Jul after | 37.3 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
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 19 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 3Every 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 15 July 2025 and 16 July 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 227 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Licata (228 ha, 1.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.5 km of 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 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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.