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Olmeta-di-Tuda fire, July 2017 Biguglia, Olmeta-di-Tuda, Rutali

Out · last detection 25 Jul 2017, 11:54 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2017 in Olmeta-di-Tuda, France, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,424 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Haute-Corse since 2016 (of 27 with a page). The largest in France in 2017, of 27.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Rutali · 2020Barbaggio · 2016San-Gavino-di-Tenda · 2022Ogliastro · 2017

Burnt area
2,424ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
22 Jul 2017 – 27 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
6
communes
Started on
22 Jul
2017
Heat detections
124
in a single hotspot: 237 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul27 Jul
25 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

24 Jul 2017 · 926 MW · 6 25 Jul 2017 · 1,997 MW · 118
24 Jul 25 Jul

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
77km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 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?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.5% of the area of London (24 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Biguglia 7,642 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    857 ha reached on 25 Jul
    32 %
  2. Olmeta-di-Tuda 583 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    855 ha reached on 24 Jul
    49 %
  3. Rutali 531 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre
    371 ha reached on 25 Jul
    21 %
  4. Oletta 1,780 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre
    308 ha reached on 24 Jul
    12 %
  5. Furiani 6,585 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre
    27 ha
    1.4 %
  6. Borgo 10,311 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre
    8 ha
    0.2 %

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 land89 %
  • Artificial surfaces4.0 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland3.0 %
  • Agricultural areas2.4 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub0.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 1 %

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 2,118 ha was recorded in Olmeta-di-Tuda on 24 July 2017 (the satellite measured 2,424 ha). The record has no coordinates, so it was matched by municipality and date.

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 30.8 °C 23 % 70 km/h 2.9 mm Low 6
25 Jul 27.9 °C 28 % 77 km/h 0.7 mm High 24
26 Jul 26.5 °C 40 % 35 km/h 2.0 mm Moderate 15
27 Jul 28.1 °C 44 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
28 Jul after 29.2 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Jul after 28.1 °C 48 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
30 Jul after 28.5 °C 60 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
31 Jul after 30.3 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
1 Aug after 34.2 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Aug after 33.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Aug after 33.7 °C 36 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Aug after 32.9 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Aug after 31.8 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Aug after 34.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2017
After · 3 Aug 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 24 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1053 µg/m³
222324252627282930
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 · 124Every 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 France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Olmeta-di-Tuda fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 July 2017 to 27 July 2017 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 July 2017 to 27 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,424 hectares (24.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Biguglia (857 ha, 32 %); Olmeta-di-Tuda (855 ha, 49 %); Rutali (371 ha, 21 %); Oletta (308 ha, 12 %); Furiani (27 ha, 1.4 %); Borgo (8 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Olmeta-di-Tuda and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class High.
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.

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
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 · 18.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 July 2017 to 27 July 2017. 124 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with BDIFF: 2,118 official ha against 2,424 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • 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 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.