Lipari fire, 4 July 2019 Lipari
The fire started on 4 July 2019 in Lipari, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 285 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
We are reviewing this page: some of its data look inconsistent (the place, the dates or the area), so treat them with caution.
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Suggestions: Lipari · 2019Lipari · 2022
- Burnt area
- 285ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 8days
- 4 Jul 2019 – 11 Jul 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Jul
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 16
- in a single hotspot: 60 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 77MW
- 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 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Lipari where it started287 ha reached on 4 Jul3.2 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub88 %
- Other natural land12 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Arcipelago delle Eolie - area marina e terrestre ITA030044
- LIC Isole di Stromboli e Strombolicchio ITA030026
Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Jul | 22.7 °C | 74 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 5 Jul | 23.0 °C | 69 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 6 Jul | 22.8 °C | 66 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 7 Jul | 22.0 °C | 71 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 8 Jul | 23.1 °C | 74 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 9 Jul | 24.0 °C | 69 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 10 Jul | 23.8 °C | 73 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 11 Jul | 22.0 °C | 55 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Jul after | 21.7 °C | 56 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 13 Jul after | 22.1 °C | 65 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 14 Jul after | 21.7 °C | 70 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
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 9 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.8 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 · 16Every 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 Lipari fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 July 2019 to 11 July 2019 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 July 2019 to 4 July 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 285 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lipari (287 ha, 3.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 22.7 °C, humidity dropped to 74 % and gusts hit 16 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.
- 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 July 2019 to 4 July 2019. 16 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.