Italy's active volcanoes and their alert level

Italy runs a four level volcanic alert scale, green, yellow, orange and red, and as of September 2026 Vesuvius is green while Campi Flegrei, Etna and Stromboli are all at yellow, the second level, which means measured parameters have moved away from ordinary but not that an eruption is expected.

The scale, and who sets it

The 4 levels are green, yellow, orange and red. Green is the volcano's ordinary activity; the following levels describe increasing departure from equilibrium toward a possible eruption. The level is set by the civil protection department on the assessment of its competence centers, the INGV sections in Catania and Palermo and the University of Florence, in periodic video conferences.

National emergency planning exists for 4 volcanoes: Stromboli, Vulcano, Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei. Alert levels move without notice, so the status below carries the date it was verified.

Eight volcanoes are under surveillance

The INGV monitors 8 Italian volcanoes. Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei and Ischia are watched from Naples by the Osservatorio Vesuviano; Etna, Stromboli, Vulcano and Pantelleria from Catania by the Osservatorio Etneo; the Colli Albani from Rome. The Palermo section handles geochemical surveillance of the Sicilian volcanoes.

2 of them, Etna and Stromboli, have an open conduit and erupt persistently. That frequency is why their short term hazard is lower than a closed system that has been silent for decades.

Campi Flegrei: yellow, and a caldera that breathes

Campi Flegrei is at yellow alert with an attention phase, set by decree on October 30, 2025 and confirmed by the civil protection department on November 4, 2025 after the major hazards commission met. Yellow has been in force there since 2012.

The caldera has been active for over 110,000⁶ years and last erupted in 1538⁶, when Monte Nuovo formed. Bradyseism, the slow rise and fall of the ground, lifted Pozzuoli by up to 3.5 m during the crises of 1970 to 1972 and 1982 to 1984, and a steady uplift has been running since 2005.

Emergency planning draws a red zone of 500,000⁷ residents, including all of Pozzuoli, Bacoli, Monte di Procida and Quarto, and a yellow ash fall zone of over 800,000⁷. Those zones describe a planning scenario, not a hazard in progress.

Vesuvius: green, and 700,000 people

Vesuvius is at green, the first of the 4 levels, and its last eruption was in 1944. It has been quiescent since, with a blocked conduit, which is the classic profile of a volcano that reopens violently rather than gently.

700,000⁹ people live on its slopes, on the civil protection figure. The red zone in the emergency plan covers 25 municipalities in the provinces of Naples and Salerno plus parts of the city of Naples, and the planning scenario is a sub-Plinian eruption of the 1631⁹ type, while the most likely event is a smaller violent strombolian one.

Reaching the crater takes a ticket bought online for a timed slot, under the presidential decree of June 29, 2026.

Etna and Stromboli erupt often, which is the point

Etna is at yellow and is the largest volcano in Europe, with a base diameter of 35 km, a surface of 1,250¹⁰ sq km and 4 summit craters: Bocca Nuova, Voragine, North-East and South-East. Around a million people live on its flanks, and its eastern side is sliding east at over 2 to 4 cm a year.

Stromboli is at yellow too, with explosions every 10 to 20 minutes from craters at 700¹² m, which is why people sail out to watch them. The island runs two automatic warning systems, one for paroxysmal explosions and one for tsunami, with sirens for the two villages of Stromboli and Ginostra.

Alert levels are dynamic. Everything above was checked on September 2, 2026, and the only correct way to use it is to check again before you travel.

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