Palermo fire, May 2020 Palermo
The fire started on 14 May 2020 in Palermo, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 356 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 61th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 22 in Italy in 2020, of 140.
- Burnt area
- 356ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 14 May 2020 – 16 May 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 14 May
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 56 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 84MW
- sum of detected power
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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 19 May.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
356 ha reached on 14 May2.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Scrub and transitional woodland48 %
- Coniferous forest19 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub15 %
- Other natural land12 %
- Artificial surfaces5.2 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 88 %
- ZEPA Monte Pecoraro e Pizzo Cirina ITA020049
- LIC Raffo Rosso, Monte Cuccio e Vallone Sagana ITA020023
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 May | 30.0 °C | 28 % | 71 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 15 May | 23.0 °C | 35 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 16 May | 31.3 °C | 27 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 17 May after | 25.3 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 18 May after | 25.2 °C | 44 % | 42 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 19 May after | 20.4 °C | 56 % | 44 km/h | 1.4 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 May 2020 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.0 times the WHO daily 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 · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,728 haMonreale24 July 2023 · 3 days · 2 km away
- 1,663 haPalermo27 July 2023 · 1 day · 10 km away
- 2,120 haMonreale29 July 2021 · 3 days · 15 km away
- 2,867 haMonreale29 July 2021 · 4 days · 21 km away
- 1,649 haAltavilla MiliciaJuly 2018 · 2 days · 28 km away
- 1,379 haCorleoneAugust 2017 · 2 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Palermo fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 14 May 2020 and 16 May 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 356 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Palermo (356 ha, 2.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 6.6 km of Palermo. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 71 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.