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IT · Italy ·

Santa Elisabetta fire, August 2024 Santa Elisabetta, Sant'Angelo Muxaro

Out · last measured on 25 Aug 2024

The fire started on 25 August 2024 in Santa Elisabetta, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 157 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 175th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 64 in Italy in 2024, of 112.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sant'Angelo Muxaro · 2021Ciminna · 2023Santa Elisabetta · 2023Sant'Angelo Muxaro · 2016

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
157ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
25 Aug 2024 – 25 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
25 Aug
2024
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

33°high
28km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 27 Aug.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 65 ha in 2016, 26 ha in 2017, 17 ha in 2020, 72 ha in 2021, 56 ha in 2022, 88 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 117 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Santa Elisabetta 2,182 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre where it started
    94 ha
    5.7 %
  2. Sant'Angelo Muxaro 1,152 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre
    64 ha
    1.0 %

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

  • Agricultural areas67 %
  • Other natural land33 %

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 Aug 33.1 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug after 33.3 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
27 Aug after 32.3 °C 51 % 29 km/h 6.1 mm High 33

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 33.7, a minimum humidity of 35% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 33.7
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Sant'Angelo Muxaro fire, July 2021
453 ha 3 days FWI 35.4 Min. humidity 35 % 6 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
158 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 11 of 27 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (157 ha against a median of 158 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 16 of 27, 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 3.2 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

6.1 mmfirst rain
27 Aug2 days after it ended
28km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 25 Aug, and on 27 Aug 6.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 11 of 27, with a median of 3.2 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 18 Aug 2024
After · 1 Sept 2024

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 · Copernicus

On 27 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1015 µg/m³
Optical depth0.46
23 Aug25 Aug27 Aug
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

All fires in Italy

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Santa Elisabetta fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2024 and 25 August 2024: 1 day 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 2 municipalities: Santa Elisabetta (94 ha, 5.7 %); Sant'Angelo Muxaro (64 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Santa Elisabetta and came within 2.0 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 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.
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: 27. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 158 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. In 16 of 27, 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 3.2 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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112 · 1515.

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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.