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IT · Italy ·

Palazzo Adriano fire, September 2022 Palazzo Adriano, Bivona

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2022, 11:53 UTC

The fire started on 9 September 2022 in Palazzo Adriano, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 175 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 124th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 90 in Italy in 2022, of 161.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
175ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
9 Sept 2022 – 9 Sept 2022
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
9 Sept
2022
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
11MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

9 Sept 2022 · 11 MW · 6

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

29°high
36km/h · peak gust
61%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 28 ha in 2018, 65 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 78 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Palazzo Adriano 1,814 inhabitants · 7.8 km from the centre where it started
    117 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.9 %
  2. 58 ha reached on 9 Sept
    0.7 %

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 areas74 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub26 %

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)
9 Sept 28.7 °C 61 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Sept after 29.6 °C 51 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Sept after 29.3 °C 47 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Sept after 28.3 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Sept after 27.5 °C 45 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 22
14 Sept after 27.1 °C 58 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Sept after 27.8 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Sept after 27.9 °C 49 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
17 Sept after 27.6 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Sept after 26.6 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
19 Sept after 25.7 °C 47 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 20.2, a minimum humidity of 61% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 24.

FWI at the start 20.2
Minimum humidity 61 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Calamonaci fire, May 2025
111 ha 1 day FWI 17.7 Min. humidity 61 % 11 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
170 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 16 of 24 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (175 ha against a median of 170 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 8 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.3 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
36km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 9 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 16 of 24, with a median of 6.3 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Sept 2022
After · 16 Sept 2022

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 9 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1041 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
7 Sept9 Sept11 Sept
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)

Detections table · 6Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Palazzo Adriano fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 September 2022 and 9 September 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 175 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Palazzo Adriano (117 ha, 0.9 %); Bivona (58 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Palazzo Adriano and came within 7.8 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 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 61 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 24. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 170 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 8 of 24, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.3 mm.

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.

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. 6 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.

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.