Monterosso Almo fire, June 2021 Monterosso Almo, Licodia Eubea, Chiaramonte Gulfi
The fire started on 24 June 2021 in Monterosso Almo, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 653 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Ragusa since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 38 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.1 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…
- Burnt area
- 653ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 24 Jun 2021 – 27 Jun 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Jun
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 34
- in a single hotspot: 10 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 141MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
25 Jun 2021 · 141 MW · 34
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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 246 ha in 2016.
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
-
Monterosso Almo where it started545 ha reached on 25 Jun9.7 %
-
Licodia Eubea 2,731 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre106 ha reached on 25 Jun1.0 %
-
Chiaramonte Gulfi 2,783 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre3 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
- Coniferous forest41 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub36 %
- Other natural land18 %
- Agricultural areas4.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jun | 35.8 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 25 Jun | 34.2 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 1.3 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Jun | 33.4 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Jun | 30.5 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jun after | 31.5 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jun after | 33.2 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Jun after | 34.7 °C | 24 % | 57 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Jul after | 30.8 °C | 41 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 2 Jul after | 28.8 °C | 41 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Jul after | 29.5 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Jul after | 30.2 °C | 25 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Jul after | 31.3 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Jul after | 28.0 °C | 46 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 7 Jul after | 29.3 °C | 38 % | 27 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.
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 25 June 2021 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 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 · 34Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,329 haChiaramonte GulfiJune 2017 · 4 days · 9 km away
- 1,868 haMonterosso AlmoAugust 2021 · 2 days · 12 km away
- 1,626 haFrancofonteJuly 2026 · 5 days · 16 km away
- 1,244 haNiscemiJuly 2025 · 4 days · 22 km away
- 1,602 haCarlentiniJuly 2026 · 2 days · 29 km away
- 1,525 haAugustaJuly 2023 · 2 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Monterosso Almo fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 June 2021 and 27 June 2021: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 653 hectares (6.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Monterosso Almo (545 ha, 9.7 %); Licodia Eubea (106 ha, 1.0 %); Chiaramonte Gulfi (3 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 3.0 km of the centre of Licodia Eubea, 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 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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. 34 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.