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Marineo fire, June 2017 Marineo, Santa Cristina Gela

Out · last detection 28 Jun 2017, 00:37 UTC

The fire started on 28 June 2017 in Marineo, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 108 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 162th largest in Palermo since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 337 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.2 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
108ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
28 Jun 2017 – 28 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
28 Jun
2017
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 1 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jun28 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

28 Jun 2017 · 2 MW · 2

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
39km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Marineo 6,113 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre where it started
    84 ha reached on 28 Jun
    2.6 %
  2. Santa Cristina Gela 1,006 inhabitants · 7.4 km from the centre
    24 ha reached on 28 Jun
    0.6 %

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 areas21 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 19 %

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)
28 Jun 33.6 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jun after 27.2 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
30 Jun after 30.4 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
1 Jul after 23.5 °C 66 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
2 Jul after 23.4 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Jul after 23.4 °C 54 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
4 Jul after 24.8 °C 49 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Jul after 25.8 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
6 Jul after 26.2 °C 44 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
7 Jul after 26.9 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
8 Jul after 26.9 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jun 2017
After · 5 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 28 June 2017 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1052 µg/m³
26272829301
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 · 2Every 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 Marineo fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 28 June 2017 and 28 June 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 108 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Marineo (84 ha, 2.6 %); Santa Cristina Gela (24 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Marineo and came within 0.6 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 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.