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IT · Italy ·

Montallegro fire, July 2026 Montallegro

Out · last detection 20 Jul 2026, 13:06 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2026 in Montallegro, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 236th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 189 in Italy in 2026, of 232.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Santa Cristina Gela · 2023Pietraperzia · 2025Montallegro · 2021Cattolica Eraclea · 2025

Burnt area
120ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 1day
20 Jul 2026 – 20 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
20 Jul
2026
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
50MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul20 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jul 2026 · 50 MW · 4

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
35km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 35 ha in 2018, 62 ha in 2021, 3 ha in 2023, 92 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 103 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Montallegro 2,377 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the centre where it started
    120 ha reached on 20 Jul
    4.4 %

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

  • Other natural land52 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub30 %
  • Agricultural areas19 %

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 23 % of the area in Italy

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
20 Jul 39.9 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Jul after 40.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Jul after 38.0 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jul after 33.7 °C 39 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Jul after 33.8 °C 32 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Jul after 30.2 °C 57 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Jul after 31.3 °C 49 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jul after 32.1 °C 55 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Jul after 33.6 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 26
29 Jul after 33.3 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Jul after 34.2 °C 39 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 56.5, a minimum humidity of 24% and 16 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 17.

FWI at the start 56.5
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 16
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Santa Cristina Gela fire, September 2023
160 ha 2 days FWI 56.7 Min. humidity 24 % 68 km away, in 2023

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.7 mm on 23 Sept.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
372 ha
median area
24 %
went past 1,000 ha
7.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 8 of 17 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 120 ha against a median of 372 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 9 of 17, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 7.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
35km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 20 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 8 of 17, with a median of 7.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2026
After · 27 Jul 2026

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 23 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 51 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak51 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1083 µg/m³
Optical depth0.63
18 Jul20 Jul22 Jul
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 · 4Every 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 Montallegro fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (20 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 20 July 2026 (1 day from 20 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Montallegro (120 ha, 4.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Montallegro and came within 1.7 km of its centre. 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 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 17. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 372 ha; 24 % went past 1,000 ha. In 9 of 17, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 7.8 mm.

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.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 4 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.