How long did the Messina fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 2 August 2024 and 4 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 370 hectares (3.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Messina (205 ha, 1.0 %); Scaletta Zanclea (112 ha, 24 %); Itala (54 ha, 5.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.8 km of Itala. 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 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.

IT · Italy · 2024-08-02 → 2024-08-04

Messina fire, 2 August 2024 Messina, Scaletta Zanclea, Itala

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2024, 00:00 UTC

The fire started on 2 August 2024 in Messina, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 370 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in Messina since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 18 in Italy in 2024, of 112.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.3 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: 370ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 2 Aug 2024 – 4 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 2 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 21; in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start: 26; High · FWI index
Energy released: 154MW; sum of detected power

Play back 4 Aug 2024

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Aug4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

234

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

33km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 198 ha in 2017, 4 ha in 2021, 10 ha in 2022.

198 ha Scaletta Zanclea fire, August 2017 586 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Messina 218,786 inhabitants · 16.0 km from the town where it started

205 ha reached on 2 Aug

1.0 %
Scaletta Zanclea 1,836 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town

112 ha reached on 3 Aug

24 %
Itala 1,513 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town

54 ha reached on 2 Aug

5.0 %

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

Other natural land49 %
Agricultural areas49 %
Broadleaved forest1.9 %

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)
2 Aug	31.0 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
3 Aug	33.0 °C	30 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Aug	28.7 °C	40 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
5 Aug after	27.4 °C	59 %	23 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 19
6 Aug after	28.5 °C	46 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
7 Aug after	29.5 °C	44 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
8 Aug after	29.0 °C	43 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	High 24
9 Aug after	29.2 °C	45 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
10 Aug after	29.2 °C	48 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 24
11 Aug after	29.8 °C	45 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
12 Aug after	29.5 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
13 Aug after	30.2 °C	45 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
14 Aug after	31.1 °C	43 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Jul 2024

After · 11 Aug 2024

Before After

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 6 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1077 µg/m³

Optical depth0.46

WHO 15

311234567

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 · 21Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Messina fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 2 August 2024 and 4 August 2024: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 370 hectares (3.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Messina (205 ha, 1.0 %); Scaletta Zanclea (112 ha, 24 %); Itala (54 ha, 5.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.8 km of Itala. 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 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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

Protezione Civile ↗
Carabinieri Forestali (1515) ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

Where it burned