Papasidero fire, 10 July 2017 Santa Domenica Talao, Papasidero
The fire started on 10 July 2017 in Papasidero, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 153 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 73th largest in Cosenza since 2016 (of 145 with a page). Number 232 in Italy in 2017, of 361.
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- Burnt area
- 153ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 10 Jul 2017 – 13 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 18
- in a single hotspot: 45 MW
- Danger at start
- 30
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 73MW
- 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 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.5 mm on 15 Jul.
This area had burned before
39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 59 ha in 2016.
What happened to each town
-
Santa Domenica Talao 1,122 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre141 ha reached on 11 Jul3.9 %
-
13 ha reached on 10 Jul0.2 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland44 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub20 %
- Broadleaved forest15 %
- Other natural land13 %
- Agricultural areas8.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 92 %
- ZEPA Pollino e Orsomarso IT9310303
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Jul | 31.4 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Jul | 31.8 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 12 Jul | 32.8 °C | 21 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Jul | 29.4 °C | 43 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Jul after | 26.6 °C | 60 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 15 Jul after | 26.4 °C | 66 % | 30 km/h | 4.5 mm | Very low 2 |
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.
Detections table · 18Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 499 haSanta Domenica Talao4 August 2021 · 2 days · 1 km away
- 609 haSanta Domenica TalaoSeptember 2025 · 2 days · 2 km away
- 538 haSanta Domenica TalaoAugust 2023 · 5 days · 2 km away
- 643 haSanta Domenica TalaoJuly 2017 · 8 days · 3 km away
- 518 haTortora16 July 2017 · 4 days · 14 km away
- 631 haMorano CalabroJuly 2026 · 7 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Papasidero fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 July 2017 to 13 July 2017 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 July 2017 to 11 July 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 153 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Santa Domenica Talao (141 ha, 3.9 %); Papasidero (13 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.0 km of the centre of Santa Domenica Talao, 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 15 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 11 July 2017 → 13 July 2017.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 July 2017 to 11 July 2017. 18 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.