San Basilio fire, July 2021 San Basilio, Siurgus Donigala
The fire started on 23 July 2021 in San Basilio, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 206 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 21th largest in Sud Sardegna since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 145 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 206ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 23 Jul 2021 – 23 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 23 Jul
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 113 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 746MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
23 Jul 2021 · 746 MW · 9
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 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21 ha in 2020.
What happened to each town
-
161 ha reached on 23 Jul3.6 %
-
Siurgus Donigala 1,823 inhabitants · 6.1 km from the centre45 ha0.6 %
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 areas55 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub45 %
- Broadleaved forest0.5 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to CFVA Sardegna, this fire started on 23 July 2021 and burned 221 ha (the satellite measured 206 ha).
- San Basilio Sa Tuppa 23 July 2021 221 ha
Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, Corpo Forestale e di Vigilanza Ambientale: perimetri delle aree percorse dal fuoco (CC BY 4.0). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul | 33.2 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 24 Jul after | 32.2 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Jul after | 33.1 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 27 Jul after | 31.1 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 29 Jul after | 33.4 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 30 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 31 Jul after | 34.8 °C | 28 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Aug after | 32.2 °C | 32 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 2 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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 26 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 9Every 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 San Basilio fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2021 and 23 July 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 206 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: San Basilio (161 ha, 3.6 %); Siurgus Donigala (45 ha, 0.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in San Basilio and came within 1.8 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 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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 · 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 9 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CFVA Sardegna: 221 official ha against 206 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.