Oriolo fire, 15 July 2024 Oriolo
The fire started on 15 July 2024 in Oriolo, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 176 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 61th largest in Cosenza since 2016 (of 145 with a page). Number 52 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
- 176ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 15 Jul 2024 – 19 Jul 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Jul
- 2024
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 100%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 22 Jul.
This area had burned before
29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 51 ha in 2021.
What happened to each town
-
176 ha2.1 %
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 areas54 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub39 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland4.0 %
- Coniferous forest2.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Alto Ionio Cosentino IT9310304
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.16 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jul | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Jul | 34.4 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 17 Jul | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Jul | 36.0 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Jul | 35.4 °C | 33 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Jul after | 33.3 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Jul after | 31.3 °C | 50 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 22 Jul after | 30.6 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 3.0 mm | Low 6 |
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 14 July 2024 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)
Other fires nearby
- 378 haPlataciAugust 2017 · 6 days · 19 km away
- 1,617 haCastrovillariJuly 2026 · 4 days · 30 km away
- 640 haCassano all'IonioAugust 2019 · 1 day · 30 km away
- 358 haMorano Calabro1 August 2017 · 7 days · 35 km away
- 399 haPisticci10 August 2025 · 2 days · 37 km away
- 845 haCracoAugust 2026 · 2 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Oriolo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 July 2024 to 19 July 2024 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 July 2024 to 15 July 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 176 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Oriolo (176 ha, 2.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Oriolo 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 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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.
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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 July 2024 to 15 July 2024. 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.