Over the past year, Italy has been hit by forest fires covering a total area of 1,073 km2 (almost a third of the Aosta Valley), according to new data provided by the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA).
Of these, approximately 157 km2 (an area comparable to the size of Lake Como) were composed of terrestrial forest ecosystems. 63% were evergreen broadleaf trees such as holm oaks and Mediterranean scrub; 17% coniferous forests and 15% deciduous broadleaf forests, mostly mixed oak forests.
The fires that occurred in Italy in 2023 were significant both for the overall extension of the affected areas (second only to 2021 in the last six years) and because they systematically hit only some provinces.
In 2023, the regions of Sicily and Calabria alone contributed to more than 83% of the total Italian forest area affected by large forest fires. The region of Sicily alone, with a total of 101 km2 of forest area affected by fire, contributed to 64% of the total national forest area burned in 2023.
In 2023, only 15 out of 20 regions were affected by large forest fires. The regions that do not have areas affected by fires are Friuli Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Umbria. Comparing the data with the previous year, the area affected by fires decreases in 2023 in the Northern, Central-Northern and Central regions, while it increases in the Southern regions and in Sicily and Sardinia.
The province that suffered the most from the fires is that of Palermo with 43.5 km2, which alone represents 43% of the total regional forest burned and a good 28% of the total national forest burned this year. Also in the provinces of Messina and Syracuse, 23 and 10 km2 of forested surface burned respectively.
In Calabria, in the province of Reggio alone, forest areas of 20 km2 have been affected by fire. 43% of the forest ecosystems affected by fire in 2023 are located within protected areas, mainly belonging to Natura 2000 Network sites.
The temporal concentration of the fires is also quite significant: Ispra documents that in the space of just four days, between 24 and 28 July 2023, approximately 80 km2 of forested area burned (an average of 20 km2/day), almost half of what was burned in the whole of 2023; in the months of August and September, on the other hand, an average of 0.3 km2 of forests burned per day. Another significant event occurred at the end of September, when 20 km2 of forest burned again between 17 and 23 September (an average of 2.8 km2/day).
And for 2024? The data collected so far continues to be discouraging. From 1 January to 31 May 2024, the total area affected by forest fires is 39 km2, of which almost 12 belong to woods and forests. Currently, 80% of the areas affected by fires, both total and forestry, are located in the regions of Sicily and Calabria.
