Burned area
satellite only217ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 5 October 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
IT · Italy ·
Roccavaldina fire, September 2023 Roccavaldina, Venetico, Rometta
Out · last measured on 25 Sept 2023
The fire started on 25 September 2023 in Roccavaldina, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 217 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 37th largest in Messina since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 97 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only1day
25 Sept 2023 to 25 Sept 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 25 Sept 2023 – 25 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only25 Sept 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 25 Sept 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Danger at the start
model0.1FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 1.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 25 Sept 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model22.1°C · 63% RH
High of 22.1 °C and minimum humidity of 63% on 25 September 2023; gusts of 21 km/h on 25 September 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 25 Sept 2023 – 25 Sept 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 217 ha
- Dates
- 25 Sept 2023 – 25 Sept 2023
- Name
- Roccavaldina
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/roccavaldina-2023-09?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire roccavaldina-2023-09.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-09-25 | 0 | 0 | 22.1 | 17.7 | 63 | 7.8 | 20.9 | 24.8 | 0.1 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2023-09-26 | 0 | 0 | 21.5 | 17.2 | 74 | 16.5 | 38.2 | 13.2 | 0 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 217ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 25 Sept 2023 – 25 Sept 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Sept
- 2023
- Danger at start
- 0
- Very low · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
22°high
21km/h · peak gust
63%lowest humidity
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.2 mm on 26 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
195 ha27 %
-
Venetico 3,940 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre20 ha4.5 %
-
2 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
- Sclerophyllous scrub52 %
- Agricultural areas32 %
- Broadleaved forest15 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Sept | 22.1 °C | 63 % | 21 km/h | 24.8 mm | Very low 0 |
| 26 Sept after | 21.5 °C | 74 % | 38 km/h | 13.2 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 0.1, a minimum humidity of 63% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.
FWI at the start
0.1
Minimum humidity
63 %
Days without rain
1
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Roccavaldina fire, September 2023
217 ha
1 day
FWI 0.1
Min. humidity 63 %
Cammarata fire, September 2019
132 ha
1 day
FWI 0.1
Min. humidity 64 %
160 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 11.0 mm on 11 Sept.
Lungro fire, May 2016
206 ha
4 days
FWI 0.3
Min. humidity 65 %
186 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 20 May.
Condrò fire, October 2023
526 ha
1 day
FWI 6.5
Min. humidity 62 %
5 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.6 mm on 21 Oct.
Castellammare del Golfo fire, March 2024
109 ha
1 day
FWI 1.7
Min. humidity 65 %
222 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.8 mm on 11 Mar.
Castelmola fire, September 2022
168 ha
2 days
FWI 3.3
Min. humidity 62 %
38 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.2 mm on 19 Sept.
What happened to them
- 1 day
- median duration
- 152 ha
- median area
- 0 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 4.5 mm
- rain at the end (median; 19 of 22 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (217 ha against a median of 152 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 1 day.
In 3 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.5 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
13.2 mmfirst rain
26 Septthe day after it ended
21km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 25 Sept, and on 26 Sept 13.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 19 of 22, with a median of 4.5 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 18 Sept 2023
After · 2 Oct 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 23 September 2023 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1044 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
WHO 15
23 Sept25 Sept27 Sept
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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Roccavaldina fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 September 2023 and 25 September 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 217 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Roccavaldina (195 ha, 27 %); Venetico (20 ha, 4.5 %); Rometta (2 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Roccavaldina and came within 0.7 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 22.1 °C, humidity dropped to 63 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, class Very low.
- 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 152 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 3 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.5 mm.
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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.
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.