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IT · Italy ·

Paulilatino fire, July 2024 Paulilatino, Ghilarza

Out · last detection 6 Jul 2024, 12:06 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2024 in Paulilatino, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 434 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 11 in Italy in 2024, of 112.

Compare with…
Burnt area
434ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
6 Jul 2024 – 6 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
6 Jul
2024
Heat detections
3
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
98MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul6 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

6 Jul 2024 · 98 MW · 3

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
38km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Paulilatino 2,107 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre where it started
    270 ha reached on 6 Jul
    2.6 %
  2. Ghilarza 4,175 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the centre
    165 ha
    3.0 %

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 areas49 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub24 %
  • Other natural land19 %
  • Broadleaved forest9.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 28 %

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.

Official record

According to CFVA Sardegna, this fire started on 6 July 2024 and burned 417 ha (the satellite measured 434 ha).

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)
6 Jul 33.4 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jul after 27.6 °C 59 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Jul after 32.2 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Jul after 32.4 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jul after 34.3 °C 34 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Jul after 34.0 °C 34 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Jul after 34.5 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jul after 32.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jul after 32.4 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Jul after 32.2 °C 40 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Jul after 32.2 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 45.6, a minimum humidity of 32% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.

FWI at the start 45.6
Minimum humidity 32 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Oschiri fire, August 2016
104 ha 1 day FWI 45.5 Min. humidity 32 % 85 km away, in 2016

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

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
252 ha
median area
5 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 8 of 19 had it)

It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 1 day.

Only 4 of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 11 of 19, 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 2.2 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
38km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 6 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 8 of 19, with a median of 2.2 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 · 29 Jun 2024
After · 13 Jul 2024

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 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
Optical depth0.78
4 Jul6 Jul8 Jul
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 · 3Every 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 Paulilatino fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 July 2024 and 6 July 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 434 hectares (4.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Paulilatino (270 ha, 2.6 %); Ghilarza (165 ha, 3.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Paulilatino and came within 1.3 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 33.4 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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.
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: 19. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 252 ha; 5 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 4 of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 11 of 19, 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 2.2 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. 3 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with CFVA Sardegna: 417 official ha against 434 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • 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.