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Siculiana fire, 19 July 2016 Siculiana, Agrigento, Montallegro

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2016, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2016 in Siculiana, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 707 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 8 in Italy in 2016, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (16.6 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
707ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
19 Jul 2016 – 21 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
19 Jul
2016
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
44MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1921

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

31°high
46km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Siculiana 4,161 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    474 ha reached on 19 Jul
    12 %
  2. Agrigento 55,512 inhabitants · 15.7 km from the town
    135 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.6 %
  3. Montallegro 2,377 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town
    99 ha reached on 21 Jul
    3.6 %

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

  • Other natural land38 %
  • Mixed forest26 %
  • Agricultural areas17 %
  • Coniferous forest14 %
  • Artificial surfaces5.2 %

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)
19 Jul 30.8 °C 31 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jul 31.0 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 31.0 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Jul after 30.9 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Jul after 31.4 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Jul after 31.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Jul after 25.8 °C 59 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Jul after 30.7 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jul after 30.6 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Jul after 30.4 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Jul after 31.6 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
30 Jul after 31.1 °C 41 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
31 Jul after 32.7 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2016
After · 28 Jul 2016

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 23 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1037 µg/m³
1718192021222324
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)

Detections table · 15Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Siculiana fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 19 July 2016 and 21 July 2016: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 707 hectares (7.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Siculiana (474 ha, 12 %); Agrigento (135 ha, 0.6 %); Montallegro (99 ha, 3.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Siculiana. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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
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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.

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.