Monreale fire, 29 July 2021 Monreale, San Cipirello, San Giuseppe Jato
The fire started on 29 July 2021 in Monreale, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 160 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 131th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 182 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
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- Burnt area
- 160ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 29 Jul 2021 – 31 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 35 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 40MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 53 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
Monreale where it started99 ha reached on 30 Jul0.2 %
-
San Cipirello 4,961 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the centre52 ha reached on 31 Jul2.5 %
-
San Giuseppe Jato 8,055 inhabitants · fire reached the centre10 ha0.3 %
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 land77 %
- Agricultural areas19 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub4.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 96 %
- ZEPA + LIC Monte Iato, Kumeta, Maganoce e Pizzo Parrino ITA020027
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.36 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Jul | 33.3 °C | 27 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 Jul | 32.5 °C | 25 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug after | 35.6 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 55 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 3 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Aug after | 34.6 °C | 21 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Aug after | 28.3 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Aug after | 28.8 °C | 36 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 9 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
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 31 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily 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)
Detections table · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Monreale fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2021 to 31 July 2021 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2021 to 31 July 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 160 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Monreale (99 ha, 0.2 %); San Cipirello (52 ha, 2.5 %); San Giuseppe Jato (10 ha, 0.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire reached the centre of San Giuseppe Jato: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 45 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 · 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 July 2021 to 31 July 2021. 5 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.