Nurri fire, August 2024 Nurri, Serri
The fire started on 2 August 2024 in Nurri, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 228 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Sud Sardegna since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 32 in Italy in 2024, of 112.
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
- 228ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 2 Aug 2024 – 3 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 2 Aug
- 2024
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
219 ha3.0 %
-
Serri 613 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre10 ha0.5 %
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 areas93 %
- Other natural land7.0 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Several official records match this area
According to CFVA Sardegna, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 406 ha (the satellite measured 228 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
CFVA Sardegna records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Nurri Genna Marta 31 July 2024 333 ha
- 2 Nurri Perd'e Porcu 31 July 2024 74 ha
Total according to CFVA Sardegna: 406 ha, 178 % of the 228 ha in the satellite perimeter.
Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, Corpo Forestale e di Vigilanza Ambientale: perimetri delle aree percorse dal fuoco (CC BY 4.0). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Aug | 37.8 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 3 Aug | 32.1 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 1.6 mm | High 26 |
| 4 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 36 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 5 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Aug after | 31.5 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Aug after | 34.6 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 10 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 11 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Aug after | 34.2 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 3 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 14 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nurri fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 2 August 2024 and 3 August 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 228 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nurri (219 ha, 3.0 %); Serri (10 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.7 km of the centre of Serri, 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 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
- 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. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CFVA Sardegna: 406 official ha against 228 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- 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.