Sarno fire, 13 September 2020 Sarno, Quindici
The fire started on 13 September 2020 in Sarno, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 299 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Salerno since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 26 in Italy in 2020, of 140.
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- Burnt area
- 299ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 13 Sept 2020 – 15 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · 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 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 21 Sept.
This area had burned before
24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 73 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
297 ha reached on 13 Sept7.4 %
-
Quindici 1,790 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the centre2 ha0.1 %
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 forest46 %
- Other natural land25 %
- Coniferous forest13 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland11 %
- Agricultural areas4.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 99 %
- LIC Monti di Lauro IT8040013
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Sept | 28.0 °C | 49 % | 28 km/h | 1.3 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 15 Sept | 26.4 °C | 50 % | 30 km/h | 1.6 mm | Low 8 |
| 16 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 52 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 17 Sept after | 25.0 °C | 56 % | 32 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 18 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 19 Sept after | 25.6 °C | 56 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 20 Sept after | 23.8 °C | 68 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 21 Sept after | 22.5 °C | 79 % | 33 km/h | 2.4 mm | Very low 3 |
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 15 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 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 · 17Every 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 Sarno fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 September 2020 to 15 September 2020 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 September 2020 to 15 September 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 299 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sarno (297 ha, 7.4 %); Quindici (2 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Sarno and came within 1.2 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 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 49 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
- 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 September 2020 to 15 September 2020. 17 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.