Fire near Santo Stefano Quisquina (IT)

37.61°N, 13.49°E · first detected on 20 July at 13:25

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 20 July at 13:25 to 24 July at 14:55, that is 4 days, through 608 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 8,691 ha.

Detected extent: 8,691 ha
Cumulative power: 11,422 MW
Peak power: 566 MW
Detections: 608

“Detected extent” is not “burned area”: it is the union of the ground footprints of the satellite pixels, and a 375 m pixel counts in full even when only a forest edge is burning. Compared with press figures it is in practice one and a half to three times the area reported. Detections taken at the edge of the scan swath, too coarse to measure anything at all, are excluded. These figures come from thermal satellite detection and are not an official assessment: only the local fire and civil protection authorities are authoritative.

Replay how the fire spread

The map is centred on this fire and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the whole fire, from the first satellite pass to the last. “1 h” shows what is burning within an hour of the chosen moment : the map then follows the power curve below and empties when it falls. “12 h” stacks twelve hours , as the home map does, where stacking avoids an empty screen between two satellite passes. Both are true, but they say different things.

The detected extent

Outline of the burned area near Santo Stefano Quisquina (IT), drawn over satellite imagery — The outline is the union of the ground footprints of every satellite detection of this fire, from the first pass to the last. The background is the EOX cloudless Sentinel-2 mosaic, 2024 vintage: it shows the landscape BEFORE these fires, not the burn scar.

The spread, pass after pass

Santo Stefano Quisquina (IT) seen by Sentinel-2 on 15 July — One image per usable Sentinel-2 pass, on the same framing throughout so that the comparison means something. The satellite comes back every two to five days and clouds rule out some of the passes: the gaps in the series are days without an image, not days without fire.

Santo Stefano Quisquina (IT) seen by Sentinel-2 on 20 July — One image per usable Sentinel-2 pass, on the same framing throughout so that the comparison means something. The satellite comes back every two to five days and clouds rule out some of the passes: the gaps in the series are days without an image, not days without fire.

How the radiative power evolved

One point per satellite pass: the sum of the fire radiative power measured over the fire. This is the curve that says whether the fire eased off or picked up again, which no cumulative figure shows. The window covers 30 days; beyond that, clustering would merge two successive fires in the same place.

Fire dynamics

Loading history…

Satellite passes in detail

Pass	Power	Detections	Sensor
24 July at 14:55	11 MW	2	N21
24 July at 14:10	32 MW	1	N20
24 July at 13:51	23 MW	1	N
24 July at 13:17	10 MW	1	N21
24 July at 05:49	90 MW	2	Aqua
24 July at 04:11	3 MW	3	N
24 July at 03:34	5 MW	2	N21
24 July at 02:50	20 MW	7	N20
24 July at 02:30	11 MW	5	N
24 July at 01:54	7 MW	2	N21
23 July at 16:12	11 MW	1	Aqua
23 July at 14:29	43 MW	3	N20
23 July at 14:10	65 MW	7	N
23 July at 13:34	28 MW	3	N21
23 July at 05:13	105 MW	8	Aqua
23 July at 03:54	432 MW	42	N21
23 July at 03:07	316 MW	61	N20
23 July at 02:50	289 MW	59	N
23 July at 02:13	238 MW	56	N21
22 July at 21:53	1,228 MW	28	Terra
22 July at 15:36	1,349 MW	7	Aqua
22 July at 14:46	2,169 MW	41	N20
22 July at 14:27	411 MW	21	N
22 July at 13:53	260 MW	10	N21
22 July at 13:08	18 MW	3	N20
22 July at 10:52	199 MW	4	Terra
22 July at 04:34	210 MW	6	Aqua
22 July at 03:26	302 MW	23	N20
22 July at 03:07	393 MW	32	N
22 July at 02:33	113 MW	10	N21
21 July at 21:15	36 MW	3	Terra
21 July at 16:35	159 MW	2	Aqua
21 July at 15:08	78 MW	9	N20
21 July at 14:49	211 MW	14	N
21 July at 14:12	217 MW	11	N21
21 July at 13:25	180 MW	13	N20
21 July at 13:08	308 MW	12	N
21 July at 10:11	620 MW	6	Terra
21 July at 05:34	28 MW	1	Aqua
21 July at 03:45	41 MW	9	N20
21 July at 03:26	69 MW	11	N
21 July at 02:52	91 MW	13	N21
21 July at 02:07	57 MW	13	N20
20 July at 22:14	305 MW	4	Terra
20 July at 15:08	241 MW	11	N
20 July at 14:32	82 MW	5	N21
20 July at 13:47	174 MW	8	N20
20 July at 13:25	138 MW	12	N

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The map shows active fires in 3D, with smoke plumes, forecast wind, drop zones and the live position of the Canadair, Dash 8 and Air Tractor aircraft of the French Sécurité civile.

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