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Madonie fire, August 2021 Geraci Siculo, San Mauro Castelverde, Castel di Lucio

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2021, 01:41 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2021 in San Mauro Castelverde, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 11,728 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 9 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Palermo since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 2 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

Compare with…

Suggestions: San Mauro Castelverde · 2017Alimena · 2023Resuttano · 2026Polizzi Generosa · 2021

Burnt area
11,728ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
9days
4 Aug 2021 – 12 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit
9
municipalities
Started on
4 Aug
2021
Heat detections
232
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
581MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug12 Aug
12 Aug 2021

How it evolved, day by day

5 Aug 2021 · 1,950 MW · 144 7 Aug 2021 · 77 MW · 6 8 Aug 2021 · 44 MW · 5 10 Aug 2021 · 289 MW · 9 11 Aug 2021 · 1,111 MW · 58 12 Aug 2021 · 14 MW · 10
5 Aug 7 Aug 8 Aug 10 Aug 11 Aug 12 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
65km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,513 ha in 2017, 32 ha in 2019, 10 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.4% of the area of London (117 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Geraci Siculo 1,702 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre
    3,899 ha reached on 5 Aug
    34 %
  2. San Mauro Castelverde 1,346 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the centre where it started
    2,981 ha reached on 5 Aug
    26 %
  3. Castel di Lucio 1,226 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre
    1,590 ha reached on 5 Aug
    55 %
  4. Gangi 6,110 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    1,251 ha reached on 5 Aug
    9.8 %
  5. Petralia Soprana 2,968 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the centre
    933 ha reached on 10 Aug
    17 %
  6. Mistretta 4,364 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre
    593 ha reached on 5 Aug
    4.6 %
  7. Petralia Sottana
    254 ha reached on 10 Aug
    1.4 %
  8. Nicosia 12,686 inhabitants · 12.0 km from the centre
    235 ha
    1.1 %
  9. Pettineo 1,236 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the centre
    11 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Agricultural areas44 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub33 %
  • Other natural land18 %
  • Mixed forest2.6 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.2 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 84 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area28 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 28 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendi sulle Madonie · incendio di Gangi · incendio di Geraci Siculo

Sources

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 Aug 36.7 °C 13 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Aug 29.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Aug 28.1 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 33.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 34.9 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 36.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Aug 38.3 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 36.8 °C 15 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Aug 33.2 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Aug after 32.7 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug after 31.4 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 40
15 Aug after 30.7 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug after 32.0 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Aug after 33.4 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
18 Aug after 27.3 °C 45 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug after 27.0 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm High 27
20 Aug after 27.3 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
21 Aug after 26.9 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Aug after 26.2 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2021
After · 19 Aug 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 5 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1083 µg/m³
23456789101112131415
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 · 232Every 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 Madonie fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 4 August 2021 and 12 August 2021: 9 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 11,728 hectares (117.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 9 municipalities: Geraci Siculo (3,899 ha, 34 %); San Mauro Castelverde (2,981 ha, 26 %); Castel di Lucio (1,590 ha, 55 %); Gangi (1,251 ha, 9.8 %); Petralia Soprana (933 ha, 17 %); Mistretta (593 ha, 4.6 %); Petralia Sottana (254 ha, 1.4 %); Nicosia (235 ha, 1.1 %); Pettineo (11 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire reached the centre of Gangi: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 232 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.