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Aieta fire, 16 July 2017 Aieta, Praia a Mare

Out · last detection 17 Jul 2017, 12:43 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2017 in Aieta, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 125 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 104th largest in Cosenza since 2016 (of 145 with a page). Number 284 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
125ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
16 Jul 2017 – 17 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
16 Jul
2017
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
123MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul17 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

17

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
51km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 25 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Aieta 753 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town where it started
    64 ha reached on 17 Jul
    1.3 %
  2. Praia a Mare 6,364 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town
    62 ha reached on 17 Jul
    2.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub27 %
  • Mixed forest24 %
  • Other natural land20 %
  • Agricultural areas0.8 %

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)
16 Jul 27.0 °C 25 % 51 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 13
17 Jul 27.6 °C 27 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Jul after 28.4 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
19 Jul after 27.9 °C 41 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
20 Jul after 29.1 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
21 Jul after 31.1 °C 34 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Jul after 32.9 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jul after 31.2 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Jul after 32.2 °C 33 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Jul after 24.7 °C 52 % 57 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2017
After · 24 Jul 2017

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 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
14151617181920
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 · 15Every 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 Aieta fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2017 and 17 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 125 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Aieta (64 ha, 1.3 %); Praia a Mare (62 ha, 2.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.6 km of Praia a Mare. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.6 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.