How long did the Cattolica Eraclea fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 September 2026 to 9 September 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2026 to 9 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 101 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cattolica Eraclea (101 ha, 1.6 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.6 km of Cattolica Eraclea. 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 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.

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 · 2026-09-04 → 2026-09-09

Cattolica Eraclea fire, September 2026 Cattolica Eraclea

Out · last detection 4 Sept 2026, 12:04 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2026 in Cattolica Eraclea, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 101 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 286th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 227 in Italy in 2026, of 231.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.0 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: 101ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 4 Sept 2026 – 9 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 4 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 2; in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 9MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept9 Sept

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

29°high

42km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 62 ha in 2018, 2 ha in 2020, 59 ha in 2021, 6 ha in 2022, 68 ha in 2023, 41 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 82 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Cattolica Eraclea 3,300 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town where it started

101 ha reached on 4 Sept

1.6 %

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

Other natural land65 %
Agricultural areas35 %

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)
22 Sept after	28.8 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
23 Sept after	25.8 °C	48 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
24 Sept after	25.4 °C	34 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
25 Sept after	24.3 °C	63 %	34 km/h	1.5 mm	Low 8
26 Sept after	24.9 °C	39 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
27 Sept after	25.3 °C	40 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
28 Sept after	24.5 °C	43 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
29 Sept after	25.3 °C	46 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Aug 2026

After · 16 Sept 2026

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 28 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 8 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak8 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1012 µg/m³

Optical depth0.21

202122232425262728

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 · 2Every 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 Cattolica Eraclea fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 September 2026 to 9 September 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 September 2026 to 9 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 101 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cattolica Eraclea (101 ha, 1.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.6 km of Cattolica Eraclea. 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 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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

Protezione Civile ↗
Carabinieri Forestali (1515) ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

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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.

Where it burned