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Trinitapoli fire, July 2020 Zapponeta, Trinitapoli

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2020, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2020 in Trinitapoli, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 163 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Barletta-Andria-Trani since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 66 in Italy in 2020, of 140.

Burnt area
163ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
19 Jul 2020 – 21 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
19 Jul
2020
Heat detections
22
in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
931MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jul 2020
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

30°high
33km/h · peak gust
39%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 25 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Zapponeta
    151 ha reached on 21 Jul
    3.6 %
  2. Trinitapoli 13,844 inhabitants · 17.0 km from the town where it started
    12 ha reached on 19 Jul
    0.1 %

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 land86 %
  • Agricultural areas14 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
19 Jul 25.9 °C 45 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Jul 27.9 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Jul 30.2 °C 39 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
22 Jul after 31.5 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Jul after 31.2 °C 50 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
24 Jul after 31.5 °C 46 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
25 Jul after 27.2 °C 56 % 37 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2020
After · 28 Jul 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 22Every 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 Trinitapoli fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 19 July 2020 and 21 July 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 163 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zapponeta (151 ha, 3.6 %); Trinitapoli (12 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 17.0 km of Trinitapoli. 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 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, 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.

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.