Positano fire, July 2017 Positano, Agerola, Vico Equense
The fire started on 10 July 2017 in Positano, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 368 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Salerno since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 63 in Italy in 2017, of 361.
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- Burnt area
- 368ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 10 Jul 2017 – 13 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 39
- in a single hotspot: 44 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 159MW
- 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 49 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
-
Positano where it started307 ha reached on 10 Jul36 %
-
Agerola 7,711 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre32 ha reached on 13 Jul1.6 %
-
Vico Equense 20,254 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the centre30 ha reached on 13 Jul1.0 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub55 %
- Broadleaved forest17 %
- Other natural land16 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 74 %
- LIC Dorsale dei Monti Lattari IT8030008
- LIC Valloni della Costiera Amalfitana IT8050051
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Jul | 23.4 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 11 Jul | 24.0 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 12 Jul | 24.2 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Jul | 23.3 °C | 61 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Jul after | 21.9 °C | 67 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 15 Jul after | 22.6 °C | 50 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Jul after | 21.7 °C | 33 % | 50 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Jul after | 22.1 °C | 33 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Jul after | 22.3 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Jul after | 21.1 °C | 55 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 20 Jul after | 21.8 °C | 54 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 21 Jul after | 23.0 °C | 44 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 22 Jul after | 23.9 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 23 Jul after | 22.7 °C | 61 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
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 12 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 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 · 39Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Positano fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 10 July 2017 and 13 July 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 368 hectares (3.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Positano (307 ha, 36 %); Agerola (32 ha, 1.6 %); Vico Equense (30 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 3.4 km of the centre of Agerola, 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 24.2 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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. 39 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.