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Monreale fire, August 2019 Monreale, Camporeale

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2019, 12:43 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2019 in Monreale, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 204 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 106th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 32 in Italy in 2019, of 103.

The power measured by the satellite is low (23.9 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
204ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
8 Aug 2019 – 8 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
8 Aug
2019
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
86MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 2019 · 86 MW · 11

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
34km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Monreale where it started
    107 ha reached on 8 Aug
    0.2 %
  2. Camporeale 2,990 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the town
    97 ha reached on 8 Aug
    2.5 %

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 land53 %
  • Agricultural areas47 %

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)
8 Aug 35.3 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Aug after 31.7 °C 49 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Aug after 33.5 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Aug after 34.2 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Aug after 34.6 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Aug after 34.0 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug after 29.6 °C 48 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Aug after 29.1 °C 45 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Aug after 31.0 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Aug after 29.3 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Aug after 30.6 °C 38 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2019
After · 15 Aug 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 8 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1051 µg/m³
67891011
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 · 11Every 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 Monreale fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2019 and 8 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 204 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Monreale (107 ha, 0.2 %); Camporeale (97 ha, 2.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.7 km of Camporeale. 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 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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

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.