Castagniers fire, July 2017 Castagniers, Aspremont
The fire started on 17 July 2017 in Castagniers, France, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 101 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 27 in France in 2017, of 27.
Compare with…
We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 101ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 17 Jul 2017 – 17 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 17 Jul
- 2017
- Danger at start
- 12
- Moderate · FWI index
- Natura 2000
- 25%
- of the perimeter is protected land
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 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
-
83 ha12 %
-
Aspremont 2,346 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre18 ha1.9 %
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
- Mixed forest95 %
- Artificial surfaces4.9 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 25 %
- LIC Vallons obscurs de Nice et de Saint Blaise FR9301569
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.
Official record
According to BDIFF, a fire of 91 ha was recorded in Castagniers on 17 July 2017 (the satellite measured 101 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- Castagniers 17 July 2017 · 14:48 91 ha · cause: negligence
BDIFF (Base de Données sur les Incendies de Forêts en France). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Jul | 25.7 °C | 52 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 18 Jul after | 27.4 °C | 56 % | 24 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 19 Jul after | 26.7 °C | 63 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 20 Jul after | 26.9 °C | 68 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 21 Jul after | 27.2 °C | 66 % | 41 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 22 Jul after | 27.0 °C | 69 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 23 Jul after | 30.5 °C | 52 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 24 Jul after | 31.4 °C | 32 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Jul after | 27.1 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 1.8 mm | Low 10 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 20 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Castagniers fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 17 July 2017 and 17 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 101 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Castagniers (83 ha, 12 %); Aspremont (18 ha, 1.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Castagniers and came within 0.5 km of its centre. 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 25.7 °C, humidity dropped to 52 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 12, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of France (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 · 18 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with BDIFF: 91 official ha against 101 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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 ADM5 (Open Data Commons Attribution License 1.0). 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.