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Valderice fire, July 2021 Valderice, Custonaci

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2021, 11:40 UTC

The fire started on 26 July 2021 in Valderice, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 125 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 59th largest in Trapani since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 228 in Italy in 2021, of 291.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.4 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
125ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
26 Jul 2021 – 26 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
26 Jul
2021
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
26MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

26

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
49km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Valderice 11,480 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    83 ha reached on 26 Jul
    1.6 %
  2. Custonaci 5,274 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    43 ha reached on 26 Jul
    0.6 %

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 areas84 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub14 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.6 %

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)
26 Jul 33.9 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jul after 33.8 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jul after 35.3 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Jul after 36.8 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jul after 35.5 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Jul after 37.1 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Aug after 39.2 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Aug after 33.6 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Aug after 37.0 °C 32 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Aug after 36.8 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Aug after 33.1 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jul 2021
After · 2 Aug 2021

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 29 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1033 µg/m³
242526272829
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 · 7Every 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 Valderice fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 26 July 2021 and 26 July 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 125 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Valderice (83 ha, 1.6 %); Custonaci (43 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.4 km of Custonaci. 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 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

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.