Nicosia fire, August 2016 Nicosia, Calascibetta, Leonforte
The fire started on 1 August 2016 in Nicosia, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,434 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Enna since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 5 in Italy in 2016, of 78.
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- Burnt area
- 1,434ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 1 Aug 2016 – 3 Aug 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 1 Aug
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 40
- in a single hotspot: 65 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 181MW
- 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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 6 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
680 ha reached on 1 Aug3.1 %
-
Calascibetta 4,062 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the centre606 ha reached on 2 Aug6.8 %
-
Leonforte 12,105 inhabitants · 7.3 km from the centre150 ha reached on 2 Aug1.8 %
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
- Agricultural areas62 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub16 %
- Coniferous forest14 %
- Broadleaved forest6.0 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland2.1 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 43 %
- ZEPA + LIC Monte Altesina ITA060004
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Aug | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 2 Aug | 32.8 °C | 22 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Aug | 30.9 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 31 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 41 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 26 % | 45 km/h | 1.5 mm | High 29 |
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 30 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 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 · 40Every 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 Nicosia fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 1 August 2016 and 3 August 2016: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,434 hectares (14.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Nicosia (680 ha, 3.1 %); Calascibetta (606 ha, 6.8 %); Leonforte (150 ha, 1.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 4.7 km of the centre of Calascibetta, 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 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 40 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.