Mondragone fire, August 2022 Mondragone, Sessa Aurunca, Falciano del Massico
The fire started on 1 August 2022 in Mondragone, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 350 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Caserta since 2016 (of 69 with a page). Number 32 in Italy in 2022, of 161.
Compare with…
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 350ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 1 Aug 2022 – 3 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2022
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 98%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 6 Aug.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 300 ha in 2017, 121 ha in 2019, 4 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 307 ha that had burned before.
- 191 ha Mondragone fire, July 2017 291 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 121 ha Mondragone fire, July 2019 159 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 64 ha Mondragone fire, August 2017 139 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 35 ha Mondragone fire, June 2017 115 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Mondragone fire, June 2017 143 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
334 ha6.0 %
-
Sessa Aurunca 20,209 inhabitants · 7.2 km from the centre14 ha0.1 %
-
Falciano del Massico 3,363 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre2 ha0.0 %
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 land38 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland31 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub16 %
- Agricultural areas15 %
- Broadleaved forest0.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 98 %
- LIC Monte Massico IT8010015
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 33.7 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Aug | 34.0 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Aug | 33.5 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 50 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 49 % | 32 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
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 2 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mondragone fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 1 August 2022 and 3 August 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 350 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mondragone (334 ha, 6.0 %); Sessa Aurunca (14 ha, 0.1 %); Falciano del Massico (2 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 3.0 km of the centre of Falciano del Massico, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 · 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. No 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.