Palazzolo Acreide fire, July 2017 Palazzolo Acreide, Cassaro, Buscemi
The fire started on 12 July 2017 in Palazzolo Acreide, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 277 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 21th largest in Siracusa since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 104 in Italy in 2017, of 361.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 277ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 12 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 12 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 37 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 20MW
- 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 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 27.6 mm on 16 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
219 ha reached on 12 Jul2.5 %
-
Cassaro 724 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the centre58 ha reached on 13 Jul2.9 %
-
Buscemi 950 inhabitants · 6.4 km from the centre1 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 areas56 %
- Broadleaved forest44 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 42 %
- ZEPA + LIC Valle del Fiume Anapo, Cavagrande del Calcinara, Cugni di Sortino ITA090009
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 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 1.1 hectares of built-up land and about 20 residents (GHSL 2015, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Jul | 36.6 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Jul | 33.4 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 14 Jul | 30.1 °C | 38 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 15 Jul after | 29.7 °C | 43 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 Jul after | 25.8 °C | 57 % | 35 km/h | 27.6 mm | Very low 2 |
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.
Detections table · 6Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,048 haSortinoJuly 2023 · 5 days · 8 km away
- 1,868 haMonterosso AlmoAugust 2021 · 2 days · 17 km away
- 1,602 haCarlentiniJuly 2026 · 2 days · 18 km away
- 1,626 haFrancofonteJuly 2026 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 1,098 haMelilli19 July 2023 · 12 days · 22 km away
- 1,329 haChiaramonte GulfiJune 2017 · 4 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Palazzolo Acreide fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 12 July 2017 and 14 July 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 277 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Palazzolo Acreide (219 ha, 2.5 %); Cassaro (58 ha, 2.9 %); Buscemi (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.9 km of the centre of Cassaro, 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 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.
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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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 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.