Campo Calabro fire, July 2017 Campo Calabro, Villa San Giovanni, Fiumara
The fire started on 6 July 2017 in Campo Calabro, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 121 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 78th largest in Reggio di Calabria since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 299 in Italy in 2017, of 361.
The power measured by the satellite is low (8.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 121ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 9days
- 6 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 6 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 8
- in a single hotspot: 9 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 43MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
12 Jul 2017 · 43 MW · 8
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.0 mm on 16 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
53 ha reached on 12 Jul6.6 %
-
47 ha reached on 12 Jul3.9 %
-
Fiumara 845 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the centre21 ha reached on 12 Jul3.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Broadleaved forest63 %
- Agricultural areas30 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland7.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 10 %
- ZEPA Costa Viola IT9350300
- LIC Monte Scrisi IT9350177
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 0.92 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Jul | 30.6 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Jul | 25.9 °C | 59 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 14 Jul | 25.5 °C | 61 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Jul after | 26.4 °C | 64 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 16 Jul after | 23.3 °C | 71 % | 34 km/h | 12.0 mm | Very low 1 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 8Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,199 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 8 km away
- 911 haReggio di Calabria5 July 2017 · 9 days · 10 km away
- 1,633 haMessina24 July 2023 · 3 days · 12 km away
- 894 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 15 km away
- 1,088 haReggio di Calabria27 July 2021 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 7,096 haBagaladi4 August 2021 · 6 days · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Campo Calabro fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 6 July 2017 to 14 July 2017 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 July 2017 to 14 July 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 121 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Campo Calabro (53 ha, 6.6 %); Villa San Giovanni (47 ha, 3.9 %); Fiumara (21 ha, 3.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 1.1 km of the centre of Fiumara, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 12 July 2017 → 6 July 2017.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 July 2017 to 14 July 2017. 8 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.