Monreale fire, August 2022 Monreale, San Giuseppe Jato
The fire started on 18 August 2022 in Monreale, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 694 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 30th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 9 in Italy in 2022, of 161.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 694ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 18 Aug 2022 – 18 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 35
- in a single hotspot: 70 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.2GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
18 Aug 2022 · 1,160 MW · 35
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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 27 Aug.
This area had burned before
20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 83 ha in 2017, 43 ha in 2020, 33 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 139 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Rome boundary: geoBoundaries · ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics (CC BY 3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Monreale where it started682 ha reached on 18 Aug1.3 %
-
San Giuseppe Jato 8,055 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the centre13 ha reached on 18 Aug0.4 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub39 %
- Agricultural areas31 %
- Coniferous forest22 %
- Other natural land8.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %
- ZEPA + LIC Monte Matassaro, Monte Gradara e Monte Signora ITA020030
- ZEPA + LIC Monte Pizzuta, Costa del Carpineto, Moarda ITA020026
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 34.4 °C | 25 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 19 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 43 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 20 Aug after | 26.4 °C | 51 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 21 Aug after | 26.1 °C | 48 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 22 Aug after | 26.1 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 23 Aug after | 25.0 °C | 50 % | 29 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 24 Aug after | 25.3 °C | 54 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 25 Aug after | 24.5 °C | 54 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 26 Aug after | 25.1 °C | 55 % | 24 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 27 Aug after | 25.8 °C | 54 % | 29 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 7 |
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 18 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 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 · 35Every 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?
- Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2022 and 18 August 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 694 hectares (6.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Monreale (682 ha, 1.3 %); San Giuseppe Jato (13 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 5.8 km of the centre of San Giuseppe Jato, 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 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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. 35 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.