Niscemi fire, July 2025 Niscemi, Caltagirone, Gela
The fire started on 23 July 2025 in Niscemi, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,244 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Caltanissetta since 2016 (of 149 with a page). Number 4 in Italy in 2025, of 216.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,244ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 23 Jul 2025 – 26 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 401 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 386MW
- 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 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 62 ha in 2018, 30 ha in 2019, 145 ha in 2021, 33 ha in 2022, 176 ha in 2023, 39 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 442 ha that had burned before.
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
-
1,133 ha reached on 24 Jul12 %
-
Caltagirone 35,765 inhabitants · 10.4 km from the centre113 ha reached on 25 Jul0.3 %
-
Gela 70,109 inhabitants · 16.8 km from the centre0 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
- Agricultural areas59 %
- Broadleaved forest28 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub7.3 %
- Other natural land4.8 %
- Coniferous forest1.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 94 %
- ZEPA + LIC Bosco di Santo Pietro ITA070005
- ZEPA + LIC Sughereta di Niscemi ITA050007
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul | 37.4 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jul | 37.9 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Jul | 39.5 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Jul | 35.9 °C | 22 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Jul after | 34.5 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Jul after | 32.4 °C | 31 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Jul after | 32.0 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Jul after | 29.4 °C | 42 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 35 |
| 31 Jul after | 30.4 °C | 36 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 1 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Aug after | 30.3 °C | 34 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Aug after | 32.2 °C | 35 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 5 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 35 % | 49 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 45 |
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 26 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 21Every 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 · 25 km away
- 3,558 haButeraJuly 2026 · 21 days · 28 km away
- 1,868 haMonterosso AlmoAugust 2021 · 2 days · 31 km away
- 1,626 haFrancofonteJuly 2026 · 5 days · 33 km away
- 1,034 haAidoneJuly 2022 · 6 days · 34 km away
- 2,946 haPiazza Armerina4 August 2017 · 5 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Niscemi fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2025 and 26 July 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,244 hectares (12.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Niscemi (1,133 ha, 12 %); Caltagirone (113 ha, 0.3 %); Gela (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Niscemi and came within 4.5 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 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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. 21 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.