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Mineo fire, July 2023 Mineo

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2023, 01:48 UTC

The fire started on 21 July 2023 in Mineo, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,012 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Catania since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 19 in Italy in 2023, of 207.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.2 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
1,012ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
21 Jul 2023 – 26 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2023
Heat detections
25
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
90MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jul 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2122

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

The weather it burned in

44°high
51km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2017, 136 ha in 2018, 42 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Mineo 4,486 inhabitants · 6.9 km from the town where it started
    1,014 ha reached on 21 Jul
    4.2 %

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 areas83 %
  • Other natural land13 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub3.3 %

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)
21 Jul 41.5 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Jul 41.8 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
23 Jul 43.8 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
24 Jul 43.9 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
25 Jul 41.2 °C 16 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
26 Jul 36.2 °C 24 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
27 Jul after 33.7 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jul after 33.2 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul after 36.5 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Jul after 38.1 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
31 Jul after 39.3 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
1 Aug after 35.9 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Aug after 37.0 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Aug after 36.9 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Aug after 35.6 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug after 30.3 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Aug after 32.9 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Aug after 33.4 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Aug after 31.0 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Aug after 31.5 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2023
After · 2 Aug 2023

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 26 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1067 µg/m³
Optical depth0.61
1920212223242526272829303112
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 · 25Every 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 Mineo fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 21 July 2023 and 26 July 2023: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,012 hectares (10.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mineo (1,014 ha, 4.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.9 km of Mineo. 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 43.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very 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

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.