How long did the Polizzi Generosa fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 July 2021 to 5 August 2021 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2021 to 4 August 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,604 hectares (26.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Scillato (1,206 ha, 38 %); Collesano (1,073 ha, 10.0 %); Polizzi Generosa (329 ha, 2.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire reached the centre of Scillato: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.

IT · Italy · 2021-07-30 → 2021-08-05

Polizzi Generosa fire, July 2021 Scillato, Collesano, Polizzi Generosa

Out · last detection 5 Aug 2021, 11:53 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2021 in Polizzi Generosa, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,604 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 6 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Collesano · 2016 Gratteri · 2023 Cefalù · 2016 Aliminusa · 2023

Burnt area: 2,604ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 7days; 30 Jul 2021 – 5 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 30 Jul; 2021
Heat detections: 79; in a single hotspot: 148 MW
Danger at start: 32; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 516MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul5 Aug

Play back 5 Aug 2021

How it evolved, day by day

30 Jul 31 Jul 1 Aug 5 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

53km/h · peak gust

19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 195 ha in 2016.

195 ha Collesano fire, June 2016 260 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (26 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Scillato 591 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

1,206 ha reached on 31 Jul

38 %
Collesano 3,650 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

1,073 ha reached on 5 Aug

10.0 %
Polizzi Generosa 2,908 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre where it started

329 ha reached on 30 Jul

2.4 %

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

Other natural land32 %
Sclerophyllous scrub27 %
Agricultural areas24 %
Broadleaved forest13 %
Scrub and transitional woodland4.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 94 %

LIC Complesso Pizzo Dipilo e Querceti su calcare ITA020017
LIC Monte Quacella, Monte dei Cervi, Pizzo Carbonara, Monte Ferro, Pizzo Otiero ITA020016
ZEPA Parco delle Madonie ITA020050

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 2020

Built-up area2.7 ha

Residents≈ 40

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.7 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (GHSL 2020, 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)
30 Jul	27.8 °C	25 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
31 Jul	28.1 °C	25 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
1 Aug	30.1 °C	24 %	46 km/h	1.3 mm	High 26
2 Aug	23.4 °C	52 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
3 Aug	24.1 °C	43 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
4 Aug	28.9 °C	24 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Aug	22.8 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
6 Aug after	22.1 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
7 Aug after	24.6 °C	30 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Aug after	25.6 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
9 Aug after	27.7 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
10 Aug after	30.7 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Aug after	30.3 °C	19 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
12 Aug after	26.4 °C	33 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Aug after	26.4 °C	32 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
14 Aug after	25.4 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
15 Aug after	24.7 °C	34 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 23 Jul 2021

After · 12 Aug 2021

Before After

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 · 79Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Polizzi Generosa fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 July 2021 to 5 August 2021 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 July 2021 to 4 August 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,604 hectares (26.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Scillato (1,206 ha, 38 %); Collesano (1,073 ha, 10.0 %); Polizzi Generosa (329 ha, 2.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire reached the centre of Scillato: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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 ›

Protezione Civile ↗
Carabinieri Forestali (1515) ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Last day with fire: 4 August 2021 → 5 August 2021.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 July 2021 to 4 August 2021. 79 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.

Where it burned