How long did the Tortora fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2021 and 5 August 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 139 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tortora (139 ha, 2.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Tortora. 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 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

IT · Italy · 2021-08-03 → 2021-08-05

Tortora fire, August 2021 Tortora

Out · last detection 3 Aug 2021, 12:31 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2021 in Tortora, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 139 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 88th largest in Cosenza since 2016 (of 145 with a page). Number 205 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.5 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: 139ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 3 Aug 2021 – 5 Aug 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 3 Aug; 2021
Heat detections: 5; in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start: 28; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 40MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug5 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

3 Aug 2021 · 40 MW · 5

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

63km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 42 ha in 2017, 24 ha in 2019, 1 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 51 ha that had burned before.

42 ha Tortora fire, July 2017 137 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Tortora 6,009 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town where it started

139 ha reached on 3 Aug

2.4 %

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 land60 %
Scrub and transitional woodland22 %
Broadleaved forest18 %

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)
3 Aug	32.0 °C	31 %	63 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
4 Aug	32.2 °C	26 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Aug	25.9 °C	37 %	59 km/h	0.4 mm	High 28
6 Aug after	24.6 °C	55 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
7 Aug after	27.3 °C	48 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
8 Aug after	32.2 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
9 Aug after	32.6 °C	33 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
10 Aug after	34.8 °C	26 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
11 Aug after	33.5 °C	30 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
12 Aug after	32.5 °C	37 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
13 Aug after	31.3 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.3 mm	High 25
14 Aug after	31.8 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
15 Aug after	31.2 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 27 Jul 2021

After · 12 Aug 2021

Before After

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 5 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1057 µg/m³

WHO 15

12345678

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 · 5Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tortora fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2021 and 5 August 2021: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 139 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tortora (139 ha, 2.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Tortora. 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 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

Protezione Civile ↗
Carabinieri Forestali (1515) ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned