Scilla fire, July 2023 Scilla
The fire started on 25 July 2023 in Scilla, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 137 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 66th largest in Reggio di Calabria since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 157 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 137ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 25 Jul 2023 – 25 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 4
- in a single hotspot: 10 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 36MW
- sum of detected power
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 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 26 Jul.
This area had burned before
26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 24 ha in 2017, 21 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 36 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Scilla where it started137 ha reached on 25 Jul3.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Sclerophyllous scrub45 %
- Agricultural areas38 %
- Broadleaved forest16 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Costa Viola IT9350300
- LIC Costa Viola e Monte S. Elia IT9350158
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jul | 38.6 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 26 Jul after | 28.3 °C | 62 % | 54 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 17 |
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 25 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 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 · 4Every 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 · 4 days · 11 km away
- 911 haReggio di Calabria11 July 2017 · 3 days · 14 km away
- 1,633 haMessina24 July 2023 · 3 days · 16 km away
- 894 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 6 days · 17 km away
- 7,096 haBagaladi4 August 2021 · 6 days · 25 km away
- 1,088 haReggio di Calabria27 July 2021 · 4 days · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Scilla fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2023 and 25 July 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 137 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Scilla (137 ha, 3.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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
Satellite cross-check
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
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.