How long did the Ribordone fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 23 October 2017 and 26 October 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 942 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ribordone (633 ha, 14 %); Locana (245 ha, 1.8 %); Sparone (63 ha, 2.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Ribordone. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 17.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 87 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.

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.

IT · Italy · 2017-10-23 → 2017-10-26

Ribordone fire, October 2017 Ribordone, Locana, Sparone

Out · last detection 27 Oct 2017, 12:33 UTC

The fire started on 23 October 2017 in Ribordone, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 942 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Turin since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 19 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 942ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 23 Oct 2017 – 26 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 3; municipalities
Started on: 23 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 80; in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start: 5; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 200MW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Oct 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Oct26 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627

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

The weather it burned in

17°high

87km/h · peak gust

30%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.3 mm on 5 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Ribordone 50 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town where it started

633 ha reached on 23 Oct

14 %
Locana 1,317 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town

245 ha reached on 26 Oct

1.8 %
Sparone 939 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town

63 ha reached on 27 Oct

2.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Other natural land70 %
Mixed forest25 %
Broadleaved forest4.4 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 18 %

ZEPA + LIC Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso IT1201000

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)
23 Oct	12.4 °C	30 %	87 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
24 Oct	15.0 °C	32 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
25 Oct	14.7 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
26 Oct	16.0 °C	32 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
27 Oct after	17.0 °C	33 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
28 Oct after	11.4 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
29 Oct after	16.2 °C	33 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
30 Oct after	9.9 °C	42 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
31 Oct after	9.0 °C	67 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
1 Nov after	9.3 °C	45 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 5
2 Nov after	7.8 °C	54 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 5
3 Nov after	11.1 °C	41 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
4 Nov after	7.8 °C	62 %	26 km/h	0.6 mm	Very low 4
5 Nov after	8.0 °C	75 %	25 km/h	22.3 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Oct 2017

After · 2 Nov 2017

Before After

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 21 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1047 µg/m³

WHO 15

212223242526272829303112

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 · 80Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ribordone fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 23 October 2017 and 26 October 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 942 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ribordone (633 ha, 14 %); Locana (245 ha, 1.8 %); Sparone (63 ha, 2.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Ribordone. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 17.0 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 87 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.
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

Protezione Civile ↗
Carabinieri Forestali (1515) ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

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.

Where it burned