Roccella Valdemone fire, August 2026 Roccella Valdemone, Moio Alcantara
The fire started on 29 August 2026 in Roccella Valdemone, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 247 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 28th largest in Messina since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 92 in Italy in 2026, of 232.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 247ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 2days
- 29 Aug 2026 – 30 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 6
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 52MW
- 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 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 62 ha in 2021.
What happened to each town
-
216 ha reached on 29 Aug5.3 %
-
Moio Alcantara 677 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the centre32 ha reached on 30 Aug3.8 %
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 areas76 %
- Other natural land21 %
- Broadleaved forest2.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 43 %
- ZEPA + LIC Rocche di Roccella Valdemone ITA030034
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Aug | 34.5 °C | 23 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 30 Aug | 37.0 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 31 Aug after | 33.3 °C | 28 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 46 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 2 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 3 Sept after | 29.4 °C | 32 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Sept after | 28.3 °C | 38 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Sept after | 30.0 °C | 29 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Sept after | 30.8 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Sept after | 30.2 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Sept after | 29.2 °C | 46 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 27 |
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 31 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 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 · 6Every 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 Roccella Valdemone fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (29 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 30 August 2026 (2 days from 29 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 247 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Roccella Valdemone (216 ha, 5.3 %); Moio Alcantara (32 ha, 3.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.1 km of the centre of Moio Alcantara, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 6 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.