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Mascali fire, July 2023 Mascali

Out · last measured on 18 Jul 2023

The fire started on 18 July 2023 in Mascali, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 157 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Catania since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 134 in Italy in 2023, of 207.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
157ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
18 Jul 2023 – 18 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2023
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

35°high
36km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 22 Jul.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13 ha in 2019, 28 ha in 2020, 53 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 80 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mascali 14,330 inhabitants · 4.3 km from the town where it started
    158 ha reached on 25 Jul
    4.2 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland90 %
  • Agricultural areas10 %

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)
18 Jul 34.8 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Jul after 35.5 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Jul after 36.2 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul after 34.9 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jul after 38.7 °C 22 % 27 km/h 1.8 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2023
After · 25 Jul 2023

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 21 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1051 µg/m³
Optical depth0.27
161718192021
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mascali fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2023 and 18 July 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 157 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mascali (158 ha, 4.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.3 km of Mascali. 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 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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.