Pomarico fire, August 2021 Pomarico
The fire started on 13 August 2021 in Pomarico, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 126 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 21th largest in Matera since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 225 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.4 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
- 126ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 13 Aug 2021 – 14 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 15 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 101MW
- 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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
126 ha reached on 13 Aug1.0 %
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 woodland52 %
- Agricultural areas25 %
- Coniferous forest23 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Aug | 35.5 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Aug | 34.8 °C | 28 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Aug after | 35.5 °C | 26 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Aug after | 36.0 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Aug after | 36.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Aug after | 32.6 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.6 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Aug after | 32.1 °C | 28 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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 11 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 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 · 12Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 399 haPisticci10 August 2025 · 2 days · 13 km away
- 845 haCracoAugust 2026 · 2 days · 14 km away
- 367 haIrsinaAugust 2021 · 3 days · 26 km away
- 1,309 haGravina in PugliaAugust 2017 · 3 days · 30 km away
- 1,059 haGravina in PugliaJuly 2021 · 5 days · 34 km away
- 329 haSanteramo in ColleJuly 2021 · 1 day · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pomarico fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 August 2021 and 14 August 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 126 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pomarico (126 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.8 km of Pomarico. 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 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.