Ussana fire, August 2023 Ussana, Monastir
The fire started on 7 August 2023 in Ussana, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 139 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 26th largest in Sud Sardegna since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 153 in Italy in 2023, of 207.
Compare with…
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
- 139ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 7 Aug 2023 – 7 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 7 Aug
- 2023
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 44 ha in 2022.
What happened to each town
-
128 ha3.8 %
-
Monastir 4,438 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre12 ha0.4 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Sclerophyllous scrub76 %
- Agricultural areas16 %
- Artificial surfaces5.0 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland3.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.22 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Official record
According to CFVA Sardegna, this fire started on 6 August 2023 and burned 298 ha (the satellite measured 139 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Ussana Terras Noas 6 August 2023 298 ha
Regione Autonoma della Sardegna, Corpo Forestale e di Vigilanza Ambientale: perimetri delle aree percorse dal fuoco (CC BY 4.0). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Aug | 26.6 °C | 39 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 33 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 11 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 50 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 12 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 13 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 14 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 50 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 15 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 44 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
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 10 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 8 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ussana fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 August 2023 and 7 August 2023: 1 day 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 entered 2 municipalities: Ussana (128 ha, 3.8 %); Monastir (12 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ussana and came within 0.7 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.6 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with CFVA Sardegna: 298 official ha against 139 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.