Morano Calabro fire, July 2026 Morano Calabro, San Basile, Saracena
The fire started on 16 July 2026 in Morano Calabro, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 631 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Cosenza since 2016 (of 145 with a page). Number 28 in Italy in 2026, of 232.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.2 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
- 631ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 7days
- 16 Jul 2026 – 22 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 39
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 37MW
- 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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 24 Jul.
This area had burned before
18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 54 ha in 2017, 2 ha in 2019, 48 ha in 2021, 7 ha in 2024.
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
-
394 ha reached on 18 Jul3.4 %
-
San Basile 931 inhabitants · fire reached the centre129 ha reached on 20 Jul6.9 %
-
Saracena 3,387 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre108 ha reached on 19 Jul1.0 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub27 %
- Mixed forest20 %
- Agricultural areas14 %
- Broadleaved forest13 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
- Other natural land9.6 %
- Coniferous forest3.0 %
- Artificial surfaces0.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Pollino e Orsomarso IT9310303
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jul | 37.2 °C | 17 % | 15 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Jul | 39.5 °C | 18 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 18 Jul | 39.0 °C | 12 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Jul | 39.2 °C | 12 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Jul | 40.0 °C | 10 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Jul | 38.5 °C | 13 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 22 Jul | 35.2 °C | 19 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Jul after | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 10 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 28 % | 17 km/h | 5.2 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 21 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 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 · 39Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,617 haCastrovillariJuly 2026 · 4 days · 8 km away
- 640 haCassano all'IonioAugust 2019 · 1 day · 16 km away
- 609 haSanta Domenica TalaoSeptember 2025 · 2 days · 26 km away
- 499 haSanta Domenica Talao4 August 2021 · 2 days · 26 km away
- 643 haSanta Domenica TalaoJuly 2017 · 8 days · 27 km away
- 538 haSanta Domenica TalaoAugust 2023 · 5 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Morano Calabro fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (16 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 22 July 2026 (7 days from 16 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 631 hectares (6.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Morano Calabro (394 ha, 3.4 %); San Basile (129 ha, 6.9 %); Saracena (108 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire reached the centre of San Basile: 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 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- 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. 39 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.