Montebello Jonico fire, 24 July 2017 Montebello Jonico, Motta San Giovanni
The fire started on 24 July 2017 in Montebello Jonico, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 628 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 13th largest in Reggio di Calabria since 2016 (of 101 with a page). Number 31 in Italy in 2017, of 361.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.5 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
- 628ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 24 Jul 2017 – 25 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 54MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
24 Jul 2017 · 54 MW · 9
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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 31 ha in 2016.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Rome boundary: geoBoundaries · ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics (CC BY 3.0).
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).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
554 ha reached on 24 Jul9.9 %
-
Motta San Giovanni 5,574 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre74 ha reached on 24 Jul1.6 %
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 land60 %
- Agricultural areas29 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub8.8 %
- Artificial surfaces1.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul | 31.8 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 25 Jul | 28.7 °C | 46 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Jul after | 26.8 °C | 47 % | 46 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 27 Jul after | 26.3 °C | 55 % | 40 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 28 Jul after | 27.6 °C | 44 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 29 Jul after | 29.5 °C | 43 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 30 Jul after | 30.8 °C | 41 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 31 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 41 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 1 Aug after | 32.1 °C | 43 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 2 Aug after | 31.7 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 3 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 39 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Aug after | 34.1 °C | 36 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
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 24 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 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 · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,114 haMotta San GiovanniJuly 2023 · 6 days · 2 km away
- 1,088 haReggio di Calabria27 July 2021 · 8 days · 8 km away
- 894 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 15 km away
- 7,096 haBagaladi4 August 2021 · 6 days · 18 km away
- 911 haReggio di Calabria5 July 2017 · 9 days · 19 km away
- 1,199 haReggio di Calabria18 July 2023 · 9 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Montebello Jonico fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2017 and 25 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 628 hectares (6.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Montebello Jonico (554 ha, 9.9 %); Motta San Giovanni (74 ha, 1.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.4 km of the centre of Motta San Giovanni, 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 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 41 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 · 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. 9 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.
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.