San Roberto fire, August 2021 Calanna, San Roberto, Laganadi
The fire started on 10 August 2021 in San Roberto, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 157 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 56th largest in Reggio di Calabria since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 183 in Italy in 2021, of 291.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.3 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
- 157ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 10 Aug 2021 – 12 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 15
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 41MW
- 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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 44 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Calanna 760 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre133 ha reached on 10 Aug12 %
-
18 ha reached on 10 Aug0.5 %
-
Laganadi 342 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre7 ha0.8 %
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
- Broadleaved forest60 %
- Other natural land16 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub12 %
- Agricultural areas12 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Costa Viola IT9350300
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Aug | 30.5 °C | 34 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Aug | 30.4 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 12 Aug | 27.0 °C | 61 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 13 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 55 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 59 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 51 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 16 Aug after | 26.8 °C | 59 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 33 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 18 Aug after | 25.0 °C | 66 % | 39 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 19 Aug after | 24.3 °C | 67 % | 33 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 20 Aug after | 24.9 °C | 65 % | 28 km/h | 0.7 mm | Low 11 |
| 21 Aug after | 24.1 °C | 70 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 22 Aug after | 24.7 °C | 67 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 16 |
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.
Detections table · 15Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,199 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 6 km away
- 911 haReggio di Calabria5 July 2017 · 9 days · 8 km away
- 894 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 11 km away
- 1,633 haMessina24 July 2023 · 3 days · 17 km away
- 1,088 haReggio di Calabria27 July 2021 · 8 days · 19 km away
- 7,096 haBagaladi31 July 2021 · 17 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the San Roberto fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2021 and 12 August 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 157 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Calanna (133 ha, 12 %); San Roberto (18 ha, 0.5 %); Laganadi (7 ha, 0.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.7 km of the centre of Laganadi, 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 30.5 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 15 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.