Sortino fire, June 2022 Sortino
The fire started on 28 June 2022 in Sortino, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 174 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 35th largest in Siracusa since 2016 (of 57 with a page). Number 91 in Italy in 2022, of 161.
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
- 174ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 28 Jun 2022 – 28 Jun 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 28 Jun
- 2022
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 9 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
-
174 ha1.9 %
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 scrub44 %
- Agricultural areas28 %
- Coniferous forest14 %
- Other natural land14 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jun | 39.2 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Jun after | 37.8 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Jun after | 34.2 °C | 42 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 1 Jul after | 34.5 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Jul after | 37.7 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Jul after | 32.8 °C | 40 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Jul after | 34.4 °C | 37 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Jul after | 35.6 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 6 Jul after | 36.7 °C | 27 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Jul after | 34.2 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Jul after | 34.3 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
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 1 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sortino fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 28 June 2022 and 28 June 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 174 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Sortino (174 ha, 1.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.1 km of Sortino. 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 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 30 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.