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Mesoraca fire, July 2016 Mesoraca, Cutro, Belcastro

Out · last detection 14 Jul 2016, 01:22 UTC

The fire started on 13 July 2016 in Mesoraca, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 283 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Crotone since 2016 (of 53 with a page). Number 24 in Italy in 2016, of 78.

Burnt area
283ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
13 Jul 2016 – 16 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
13 Jul
2016
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
55MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1314

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
61km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 26 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Mesoraca 2,365 inhabitants · 18.3 km from the town where it started
    249 ha reached on 13 Jul
    2.6 %
  2. Cutro 9,385 inhabitants · 8.1 km from the town
    32 ha reached on 13 Jul
    0.2 %
  3. Belcastro 1,231 inhabitants · 11.9 km from the town
    3 ha
    0.0 %

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 areas55 %
  • Coniferous forest44 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland1.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
13 Jul 35.6 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Jul 33.4 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Jul 27.7 °C 41 % 61 km/h 0.8 mm High 30
16 Jul 26.4 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 20
17 Jul after 25.7 °C 41 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
18 Jul after 30.6 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Jul after 30.8 °C 33 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jul after 30.7 °C 36 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul after 31.2 °C 36 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
22 Jul after 32.2 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 Jul after 32.7 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Jul after 32.3 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jul after 31.0 °C 45 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Jul after 29.2 °C 50 % 24 km/h 1.9 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jul 2016
After · 23 Jul 2016

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 13 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1074 µg/m³
11121314151617181920212223
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 · 11Every 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 Mesoraca fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2016 and 16 July 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 283 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mesoraca (249 ha, 2.6 %); Cutro (32 ha, 0.2 %); Belcastro (3 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.1 km of Cutro. 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 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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.