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Naro fire, 23 June 2021 Agrigento, Naro

Out · last measured on 23 Jun 2021

The fire started on 23 June 2021 in Naro, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 236 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 104th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 127 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

Compare with…

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
236ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
23 Jun 2021 – 23 Jun 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
23 Jun
2021
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

34°high
33km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 25 Jun.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 129 ha in 2017, 19 ha in 2018, 33 ha in 2019, 104 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 151 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Agrigento 55,512 inhabitants · 17.1 km from the centre
    120 ha
    0.5 %
  2. Naro 7,007 inhabitants · 6.8 km from the centre where it started
    116 ha
    0.6 %

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 land74 %
  • Artificial surfaces15 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.12 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.12 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)
23 Jun 34.5 °C 30 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Jun after 37.5 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Jun after 36.2 °C 24 % 30 km/h 1.9 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jun 2021
After · 30 Jun 2021

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 24 June 2021 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10111 µg/m³
212223242526
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Naro fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 June 2021 and 23 June 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 236 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Agrigento (120 ha, 0.5 %); Naro (116 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Naro and came within 6.8 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.

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.