La Croix-Valmer fire, July 2017 La Croix-Valmer, Ramatuelle
The fire started on 24 July 2017 in La Croix-Valmer, France, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 502 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in Var since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 10 in France in 2017, of 27.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 502ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 24 Jul 2017 – 26 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 24 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 16
- in a single hotspot: 36 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 67MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 25 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.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
417 ha reached on 25 Jul18 %
-
Ramatuelle 1,888 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre84 ha reached on 25 Jul2.4 %
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
- Other natural land78 %
- Agricultural areas16 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub4.0 %
- Other land cover1.0 %
- Coniferous forest0.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 47 %
- LIC Corniche Varoise FR9301624
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 506 ha was recorded in La Croix-Valmer on 24 July 2017 (the satellite measured 502 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.
- La Croix-Valmer 24 July 2017 · 19:29 506 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul | 31.6 °C | 30 % | 72 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 Jul | 31.1 °C | 24 % | 74 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 26 Jul | 31.1 °C | 26 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 27 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 36 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Jul after | 34.0 °C | 25 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Jul after | 28.1 °C | 61 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 30 Jul after | 28.6 °C | 54 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 31 Jul after | 30.1 °C | 55 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 52 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Aug after | 33.5 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 42 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 5 Aug after | 35.2 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
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 26 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 times the WHO daily 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)
Detections table · 16Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the La Croix-Valmer fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2017 and 26 July 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 502 hectares (5.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: La Croix-Valmer (417 ha, 18 %); Ramatuelle (84 ha, 2.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.7 km of the centre of Ramatuelle, 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 31.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, class Extreme.
- 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. 16 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with BDIFF: 506 official ha against 502 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.