Messina fire, 24 July 2023 Messina
The fire started on 24 July 2023 in Messina, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,633 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Messina since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 7 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,633ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 24 Jul 2023 – 26 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 63
- in a single hotspot: 105 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 810MW
- 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 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 5 Aug.
This area had burned before
33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 308 ha in 2017, 194 ha in 2020, 78 ha in 2021, 16 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 547 ha that had burned before.
- 194 ha Messina fire, May 2020 222 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 116 ha Messina fire, July 2017 148 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 113 ha Messina fire, June 2017 113 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 43 ha Messina fire, July 2017 577 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 36 ha Messina fire, June 2017 424 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Messina fire, June 2022 129 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Rome boundary: geoBoundaries · ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics (CC BY 3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,637 ha reached on 25 Jul7.7 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub37 %
- Agricultural areas35 %
- Other natural land25 %
- Artificial surfaces2.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Dorsale Curcuraci, Antennamare ITA030011
- ZEPA Monti Peloritani, Dorsale Curcuraci, Antennamare e area marina dello stretto di Messina ITA030042
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul | 39.6 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Jul | 44.0 °C | 8 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 26 Jul | 30.9 °C | 44 % | 56 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Jul after | 29.0 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jul after | 28.4 °C | 52 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 30 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 56 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Jul after | 30.1 °C | 53 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 50 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 46 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 52 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug after | 31.9 °C | 39 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Aug after | 26.5 °C | 49 % | 68 km/h | 6.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
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 22 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 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 · 63Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,199 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 16 km away
- 911 haReggio di Calabria5 July 2017 · 9 days · 18 km away
- 894 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 797 haReggio di Calabria22 July 2023 · 4 days · 28 km away
- 1,088 haReggio di Calabria27 July 2021 · 8 days · 31 km away
- 3,114 haMotta San GiovanniJuly 2023 · 6 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Messina fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2023 and 26 July 2023: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,633 hectares (16.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Messina (1,637 ha, 7.7 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Messina and came within 4.5 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 44.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 63 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.