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Rocca d'Evandro fire, August 2017 Rocca d'Evandro

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2017, 12:12 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2017 in Rocca d'Evandro, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 102 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 66th largest in Caserta since 2016 (of 69 with a page). Number 352 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.2 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
102ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
9 Aug 2017 – 9 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
9 Aug
2017
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 13 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
24MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug9 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

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

35°high
33km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 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

  1. Rocca d'Evandro 3,023 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town where it started
    102 ha reached on 9 Aug
    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 land60 %
  • Broadleaved forest36 %
  • Agricultural areas3.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
9 Aug 35.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Aug after 35.6 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug after 28.5 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Aug after 24.6 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 17
13 Aug after 28.5 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
14 Aug after 30.0 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Aug after 31.4 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Aug after 32.6 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm High 25
17 Aug after 32.3 °C 31 % 18 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
18 Aug after 32.3 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
19 Aug after 31.1 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2017
After · 16 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 10 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1036 µg/m³
789101112
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 · 4Every 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 Italy ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Rocca d'Evandro fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2017 and 9 August 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 102 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rocca d'Evandro (102 ha, 2.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.5 km of Rocca d'Evandro. 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 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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

Satellite cross-check

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 · 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.