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Manfredonia fire, 18 July 2017 Manfredonia

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2017, 12:24 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2017 in Manfredonia, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 104 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Foggia since 2016 (of 38 with a page). Number 349 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.5 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
104ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
18 Jul 2017 – 18 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
18 Jul
2017
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
52MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
31km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 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

  1. Manfredonia 53,902 inhabitants · 13.6 km from the town where it started
    105 ha reached on 18 Jul
    0.3 %

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 land81 %
  • Agricultural areas19 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
18 Jul 31.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jul after 34.8 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jul after 35.4 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Jul after 37.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul after 38.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jul after 37.3 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jul after 39.3 °C 20 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
25 Jul after 31.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 3.3 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2017
After · 25 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 19 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
161718192021
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 · 5Every 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 Manfredonia fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2017 and 18 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 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manfredonia (105 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.6 km of Manfredonia. 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 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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

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.