Matera fire, August 2023 Matera
The fire started on 25 August 2023 in Matera, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 160 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 14th largest in Matera since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 128 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.6 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
- 160ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 25 Aug 2023 – 25 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 41MW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 94 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
160 ha reached on 25 Aug0.4 %
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 areas44 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland39 %
- Other natural land17 %
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 Aug | 36.9 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Aug after | 36.4 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Aug after | 35.9 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Aug after | 35.6 °C | 37 % | 48 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 30 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 37 |
| 31 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Sept after | 29.7 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Sept after | 32.7 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Sept after | 28.1 °C | 30 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
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 24 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 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 · 7Every 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 Matera fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2023 and 25 August 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 160 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Matera (160 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.1 km of Matera. 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 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 23 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.