Spinazzola fire, July 2022 Spinazzola
The fire started on 4 July 2022 in Spinazzola, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 178 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 12th largest in Barletta-Andria-Trani since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 84 in Italy in 2022, of 161.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 178ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 4 Jul 2022 – 4 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 4 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 119 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 407MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
4 Jul 2022 · 407 MW · 9
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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.3 mm on 7 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
179 ha reached on 4 Jul1.0 %
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 land73 %
- Agricultural areas24 %
- Coniferous forest2.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA + LIC Murgia Alta IT9120007
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Jul | 33.7 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Jul after | 36.0 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Jul after | 31.2 °C | 37 % | 45 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 4.3 mm | Low 9 |
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 2 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,455 haGravina in Puglia25 August 2026 · 5 days · 13 km away
- 753 haMinervino Murge15 July 2026 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 601 haMinervino Murge10 August 2026 · 1 day · 17 km away
- 585 haAndriaJune 2022 · 1 day · 20 km away
- 912 haMontemiloneJuly 2025 · 1 day · 21 km away
- 1,059 haGravina in PugliaJuly 2021 · 5 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Spinazzola fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 4 July 2022 and 4 July 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 178 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Spinazzola (179 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.2 km of Spinazzola. 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 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 37 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 9 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.
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.