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IT · Italy · –

Valvestino fire, March 2022 Valvestino, Magasa, Bondone

Out · last detection 28 Mar 2022, 11:49 UTC

The fire started on 19 March 2022 in Valvestino, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 346 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 33 in Italy in 2022, of 161.

Burnt area
346ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
10days
19 Mar 2022 – 28 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
19 Mar
2022
Heat detections
42
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
59MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Mar28 Mar
28 Mar 2022

How it evolved, day by day

24 Mar 2022 · 59 MW · 2 25 Mar 2022 · 50 MW · 9 26 Mar 2022 · 104 MW · 9 27 Mar 2022 · 69 MW · 16 28 Mar 2022 · 15 MW · 6
24 Mar 25 Mar 26 Mar 27 Mar 28 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

11°high
34km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 30 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Valvestino 167 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the centre where it started
    190 ha reached on 25 Mar
    6.1 %
  2. Magasa 106 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre
    115 ha reached on 27 Mar
    6.0 %
  3. Bondone 641 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the centre
    42 ha reached on 24 Mar
    2.2 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest46 %
  • Other natural land38 %
  • Mixed forest11 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland4.4 %
  • Coniferous forest0.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 88 %

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 Mar 3.7 °C 51 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
20 Mar 3.9 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
21 Mar 3.5 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
22 Mar 5.6 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
23 Mar 9.4 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
24 Mar 10.8 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
25 Mar 9.9 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
26 Mar 10.8 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
27 Mar 10.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
28 Mar 9.9 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
29 Mar after 7.1 °C 44 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
30 Mar after 2.9 °C 71 % 18 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 0.5, a minimum humidity of 51% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.

FWI at the start 0.5
Minimum humidity 51 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Cravagliana fire, July 2026
125 ha 9 days FWI 0.2 Min. humidity 50 % 185 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.6 mm on 10 Jul.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
255 ha
median area
6 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 14 of 16 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (346 ha against a median of 255 ha) and lasted 10 days, against 5 days.

In 2 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.2 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

4.0 mmfirst rain
30 Mar2 days after it ended
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 28 Mar, and on 30 Mar 4.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 14 of 16, with a median of 6.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Mar 2022
After · 4 Apr 2022

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 18 March 2022 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM1059 µg/m³
18 Mar21 Mar24 Mar27 Mar30 Mar
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 · 42Every 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 Valvestino fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 March 2022 to 28 March 2022 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2022 to 23 March 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 346 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Valvestino (190 ha, 6.1 %); Magasa (115 ha, 6.0 %); Bondone (42 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.3 km of the centre of Magasa, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 10.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 255 ha; 6 % went past 1,000 ha. In 2 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 6.2 mm.

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.

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 March 2022 to 23 March 2022. 42 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.