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Taormina fire, 21 July 2023 Taormina, Castelmola, Letojanni

Out · last measured on 23 Jul 2023

The fire started on 21 July 2023 in Taormina, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 228 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 32th largest in Messina since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 92 in Italy in 2023, of 207.

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Burnt area
228ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
21 Jul 2023 – 23 Jul 2023
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
21 Jul
2023
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Natura 2000
46%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jul23 Jul

The weather it burned in

37°high
21km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Taormina where it started
    115 ha reached on 25 Jul
    8.8 %
  2. Castelmola 1,062 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town
    94 ha
    5.6 %
  3. Letojanni 2,842 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town
    19 ha
    2.8 %

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

  • Agricultural areas53 %
  • Other natural land47 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 46 %

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)
21 Jul 34.2 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jul 36.2 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Jul 36.8 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
24 Jul after 37.4 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
25 Jul after 39.5 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Jul after 28.9 °C 54 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 Jul after 27.5 °C 48 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
28 Jul after 29.2 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Jul after 28.6 °C 54 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Jul after 29.0 °C 41 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Jul after 28.8 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Aug after 27.9 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
2 Aug after 28.0 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jul 2023
After · 30 Jul 2023

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 26 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1053 µg/m³
Optical depth0.80
1920212223242526
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 · 4Every 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 Taormina fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 21 July 2023 and 23 July 2023: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 228 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Taormina (115 ha, 8.8 %); Castelmola (94 ha, 5.6 %); Letojanni (19 ha, 2.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Letojanni. 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 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.