Vizzini fire, August 2019 Vizzini
The fire started on 3 August 2019 in Vizzini, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 146 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 50th largest in Catania since 2016 (of 76 with a page). Number 57 in Italy in 2019, of 102.
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
- 146ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 3 Aug 2019 – 3 Aug 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Aug
- 2019
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
146 ha1.2 %
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
- Other natural land54 %
- Agricultural areas46 %
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 | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 5 Aug after | 30.8 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Aug after | 32.1 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Aug after | 32.4 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 9 Aug after | 32.2 °C | 37 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Aug after | 32.5 °C | 34 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Aug after | 33.2 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Aug after | 33.9 °C | 32 % | 24 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 3 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily 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
- 1,626 haFrancofonteJuly 2026 · 1 day · 6 km away
- 1,868 haMonterosso AlmoAugust 2021 · 2 days · 18 km away
- 1,329 haChiaramonte GulfiJune 2017 · 4 days · 18 km away
- 1,602 haCarlentiniJuly 2026 · 2 days · 22 km away
- 1,244 haNiscemiJuly 2025 · 4 days · 27 km away
- 1,525 haAugustaJuly 2023 · 2 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Vizzini fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2019 and 3 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 146 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Vizzini (146 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Vizzini and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.