How long did the Caserta fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2017 and 23 August 2017: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 356 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Caserta (227 ha, 4.2 %); Castel Morrone (129 ha, 5.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Castel Morrone. 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 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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.

IT · Italy · 2017-08-18 → 2017-08-23

Caserta fire, August 2017 Caserta, Castel Morrone

Out · last detection 23 Aug 2017, 12:50 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2017 in Caserta, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 356 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Caserta since 2016 (of 69 with a page). Number 68 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.2 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: 356ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 18 Aug 2017 – 23 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 18 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 26; in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start: 27; High · FWI index
Energy released: 113MW; sum of detected power

Play back 23 Aug 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug23 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1819212223

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

35km/h · peak gust

31%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 1 Sept.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 56 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

Caserta 72,805 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town where it started

227 ha reached on 18 Aug

4.2 %
Castel Morrone 3,587 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town

129 ha reached on 18 Aug

5.1 %

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

Other natural land42 %
Scrub and transitional woodland23 %
Agricultural areas13 %
Sclerophyllous scrub11 %
Broadleaved forest11 %

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)
18 Aug	30.1 °C	46 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
19 Aug	28.2 °C	56 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
20 Aug	27.3 °C	62 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
21 Aug	27.9 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
22 Aug	27.2 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
23 Aug	27.2 °C	32 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Aug after	27.9 °C	51 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
25 Aug after	28.5 °C	51 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
26 Aug after	28.6 °C	52 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
27 Aug after	28.5 °C	59 %	28 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 18
28 Aug after	28.3 °C	63 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
29 Aug after	29.6 °C	48 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
30 Aug after	29.1 °C	35 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
31 Aug after	27.2 °C	60 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
1 Sept after	25.4 °C	71 %	30 km/h	3.0 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Aug 2017

After · 30 Aug 2017

Before After

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 19 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 40 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak40 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1046 µg/m³

WHO 15

1617181920212223242526

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 · 26Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Caserta fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2017 and 23 August 2017: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 356 hectares (3.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Caserta (227 ha, 4.2 %); Castel Morrone (129 ha, 5.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Castel Morrone. 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 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

Protezione Civile ↗
Carabinieri Forestali (1515) ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned