Ravanusa fire, July 2023 Ravanusa, Butera, Mazzarino
The fire started on 18 July 2023 in Ravanusa, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,776 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 5 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,776ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 7days
- 18 Jul 2023 – 24 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 47
- in a single hotspot: 61 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 103MW
- 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 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
48% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 45 ha in 2016, 166 ha in 2017, 72 ha in 2018, 250 ha in 2019, 594 ha in 2020, 361 ha in 2021, 384 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,346 ha that had burned before.
- 394 ha Ravanusa fire, August 2020 422 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 248 ha Ravanusa fire, June 2021 255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 244 ha Butera fire, June 2022 411 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 166 ha Ravanusa fire, August 2017 186 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 134 ha Butera fire, August 2022 187 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 125 ha Ravanusa fire, August 2019 125 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 92 ha Ravanusa fire, July 2020 100 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 90 ha Mazzarino fire, July 2019 125 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Rome boundary: geoBoundaries · ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics (CC BY 3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,593 ha reached on 18 Jul32 %
-
Butera 4,164 inhabitants · 11.4 km from the centre792 ha reached on 19 Jul2.7 %
-
Mazzarino 10,932 inhabitants · 14.1 km from the centre304 ha reached on 21 Jul1.0 %
-
Campobello di Licata 9,062 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the centre84 ha reached on 19 Jul1.0 %
-
Licata 34,287 inhabitants · 8.1 km from the centre8 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 areas80 %
- Other natural land6.8 %
- Broadleaved forest5.9 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub3.4 %
- Other land cover2.3 %
- Artificial surfaces1.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 15 %
- ZEPA + LIC Pizzo Muculufa ITA050010
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.9 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jul | 40.9 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 19 Jul | 37.9 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Jul | 40.4 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 21 Jul | 38.0 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Jul | 38.5 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Jul | 39.6 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 24 Jul | 38.7 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 25 Jul after | 38.0 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Jul after | 35.0 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 43 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 29 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 46 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Jul after | 35.2 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 31 Jul after | 35.3 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 36 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Aug after | 33.8 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
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 25 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 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 · 47Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ravanusa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 July 2023 to 24 July 2023 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 July 2023 to 22 July 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,776 hectares (27.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Ravanusa (1,593 ha, 32 %); Butera (792 ha, 2.7 %); Mazzarino (304 ha, 1.0 %); Campobello di Licata (84 ha, 1.0 %); Licata (8 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ravanusa 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 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 22 July 2023 → 24 July 2023.
- Start date: 20 July 2023 → 18 July 2023.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 July 2023 to 22 July 2023. 47 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 2025, 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.