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Bivona fire, July 2017 Bivona

Out · last detection 10 Jul 2017, 01:52 UTC

The fire started on 9 July 2017 in Bivona, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 567 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Agrigento since 2016 (of 289 with a page). Number 34 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.6 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
567ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
9 Jul 2017 – 10 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Jul
2017
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
63MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jul10 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

10

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
40km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 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

  1. Bivona where it started
    568 ha reached on 10 Jul
    6.4 %

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

  • Agricultural areas48 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub20 %
  • Coniferous forest19 %
  • Artificial surfaces13 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 37 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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)
9 Jul 32.2 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul 30.9 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jul after 31.0 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jul after 31.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Jul after 33.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Jul after 30.8 °C 27 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Jul after 30.9 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Jul after 28.9 °C 38 % 46 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
17 Jul after 27.7 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jul after 28.0 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jul after 27.3 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jul after 28.2 °C 35 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jul 2017
After · 17 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 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
78910111213
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 · 11Every 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 Bivona fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 July 2017 and 10 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 567 hectares (5.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bivona (568 ha, 6.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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

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.