Roccagorga fire, August 2026 Roccagorga
The fire started on 31 August 2026 in Roccagorga, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 165 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 26th largest in Latina since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 136 in Italy in 2026, of 231.
- Burnt area
- 165ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 31 Aug 2026 – 2 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 11
- in a single hotspot: 66 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 220MW
- 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 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 10 Sept.
This area had burned before
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 125 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
166 ha reached on 31 Aug6.8 %
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 woodland49 %
- Mixed forest19 %
- Agricultural areas14 %
- Coniferous forest13 %
- Broadleaved forest3.0 %
- Other natural land3.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Monti Lepini IT6030043
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Aug | 33.8 °C | 30 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 1 Sept | 33.8 °C | 32 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Sept | 33.0 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 3 Sept after | 32.0 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Sept after | 34.2 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 7 Sept after | 32.8 °C | 43 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Sept after | 33.5 °C | 30 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.9 °C | 46 % | 49 km/h | 4.2 mm | Low 7 |
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 29 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 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 · 11Every 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 Roccagorga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 August 2026 to 2 September 2026 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2026 to 31 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 165 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Roccagorga (166 ha, 6.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.4 km of Roccagorga. 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 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very 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.