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Ribera fire, July 2016 Ribera, Cianciana

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2016, 11:28 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2016 in Ribera, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 408 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 17 in Italy in 2016, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.9 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
408ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
17 Jul 2016 – 18 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
17 Jul
2016
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
85MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
39km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 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. Ribera 17,836 inhabitants · 9.2 km from the town where it started
    408 ha reached on 18 Jul
    3.4 %
  2. Cianciana 3,103 inhabitants · 7.5 km from the town
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Mixed forest72 %
  • Agricultural areas17 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland8.6 %
  • Other natural land2.0 %

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)
17 Jul 27.6 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jul 28.5 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Jul after 30.5 °C 37 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jul after 30.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul after 28.8 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Jul after 27.9 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
23 Jul after 28.9 °C 44 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
24 Jul after 29.7 °C 39 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul after 25.0 °C 71 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Jul after 29.5 °C 49 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
27 Jul after 28.8 °C 54 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Jul after 28.7 °C 53 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jul 2016
After · 25 Jul 2016

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 21 July 2016 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
PM1024 µg/m³
15161718192021
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 · 19Every 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 Ribera fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 July 2016 and 18 July 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 408 hectares (4.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ribera (408 ha, 3.4 %); Cianciana (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 7.5 km of Cianciana. 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 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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
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.

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.