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IT · Italy · –

Mignano Monte Lungo fire, September 2019 Mignano Monte Lungo

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2019, 01:27 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2019 in Mignano Monte Lungo, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 105 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Caserta since 2016 (of 69 with a page). Number 94 in Italy in 2019, of 103.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…
Burnt area
105ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
13 Sept 2019 – 14 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
13 Sept
2019
Heat detections
13
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
46MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept14 Sept
14 Sept 2019

How it evolved, day by day

13 Sept 2019 · 90 MW · 12 14 Sept 2019 · 1 MW · 1
13 Sept 14 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
26km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.5 mm on 19 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mignano Monte Lungo 3,004 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre where it started
    105 ha reached on 13 Sept
    2.0 %

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

  • Other natural land83 %
  • Coniferous forest9.5 %
  • Agricultural areas5.7 %
  • 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)
13 Sept 29.7 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
14 Sept 29.5 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
15 Sept after 29.5 °C 40 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Sept after 28.3 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Sept after 27.8 °C 56 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
18 Sept after 27.7 °C 57 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
19 Sept after 22.9 °C 76 % 28 km/h 11.5 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 14.9, a minimum humidity of 41% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 39.

FWI at the start 14.9
Minimum humidity 41 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Napoli fire, June 2024
101 ha 2 days FWI 16.8 Min. humidity 41 % 66 km away, in 2024

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 24 Jun.

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
159 ha
median area
3 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 32 of 39 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 105 ha against a median of 159 ha. It lasted 2 days, against 3 days.

In 7 of 39, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.9 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

11.5 mmfirst rain
19 Sept5 days after it ended
26km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 14 Sept, and on 19 Sept 11.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 32 of 39, with a median of 1.9 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2019
After · 21 Sept 2019

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 17 September 2019 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1030 µg/m³
11 Sept13 Sept15 Sept17 Sept
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 · 13Every 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 Mignano Monte Lungo fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 September 2019 and 14 September 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 105 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mignano Monte Lungo (105 ha, 2.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Mignano Monte Lungo and came within 2.2 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 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 15, class Moderate.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 39. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 159 ha; 3 % went past 1,000 ha. In 7 of 39, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.9 mm.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 13 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.