Burned area
satellite only766ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 26 January 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
IT · Italy · –
San Vito Lo Capo fire, July 2017 San Vito Lo Capo
Out · last detection 12 Jul 2017, 12:36 UTC
The fire started on 10 July 2017 in San Vito Lo Capo, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 766 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 11th largest in Trapani since 2016 (of 68 with a page). Number 22 in Italy in 2017, of 361.
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Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only6days
10 Jul 2017 to 15 Jul 2017: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 12 Jul 2017, 12:36 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only10 Jul 2017
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 10 Jul 2017
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only32
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 132 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 10 Jul 2017 – 15 Jul 2017
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only877MW
Total radiative power on 12 July 2017; hotspots that day: 15.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 12 Jul 2017
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model53.0FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 33.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 10 Jul 2017, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model32.5°C · 16% RH
High of 32.5 °C and minimum humidity of 16% on 12 July 2017; gusts of 46 km/h on 14 July 2017.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 10 Jul 2017 – 15 Jul 2017
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 766 ha
- Dates
- 10 Jul 2017 – 15 Jul 2017
- Name
- San Vito Lo Capo
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/san-vito-lo-capo-2017-07?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire san-vito-lo-capo-2017-07.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-07-10 | 14 | 76 | 31 | 20.1 | 18 | 10.6 | 32.4 | 0 | 53 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-07-11 | 3 | 15 | 32.3 | 19.1 | 12 | 15.6 | 39.6 | 0 | 62.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-07-12 | 15 | 877 | 32.5 | 22.8 | 16 | 18.7 | 42.1 | 0 | 54.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-07-13 | 0 | 0 | 30.6 | 21.6 | 33 | 15.4 | 40 | 0 | 53.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2017-07-14 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 20.6 | 43 | 19.3 | 46.4 | 0 | 48.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-07-15 | 0 | 0 | 27.5 | 18.3 | 46 | 18 | 43.6 | 0 | 42.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2017-07-16 | 0 | 0 | 26.4 | 19.6 | 46 | 25.7 | 52.2 | 3.3 | 29.9 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 766ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 10 Jul 2017 – 15 Jul 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Jul
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 32
- in a single hotspot: 132 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 322MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
10 Jul15 Jul
12 Jul 2017
How it evolved, day by day
10 Jul
11 Jul
12 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
32°high
46km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity
It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.3 mm on 16 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Rome boundary: geoBoundaries · ISTAT, National Institute of Statistics (CC BY 3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
767 ha reached on 10 Jul13 %
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 land76 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub19 %
- Agricultural areas5.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Capo San Vito, Monte Monaco, Zingaro, Faraglioni Scopello, Monte Sparacio ITA010017
- ZEPA Monte Cofano, Capo San Vito e Monte Sparagio ITA010029
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)
Started with Extreme FWI: 23 % of the area in Italy
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Jul | 31.0 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Jul | 32.3 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 12 Jul | 32.5 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Jul | 30.6 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 14 Jul | 27.0 °C | 43 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Jul | 27.5 °C | 46 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Jul after | 26.4 °C | 46 % | 52 km/h | 3.3 mm | High 30 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 53.0, a minimum humidity of 18% and 33 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 25.
FWI at the start
53.0
Minimum humidity
18 %
Days without rain
33
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · San Vito Lo Capo fire, July 2017
766 ha
6 days
FWI 53.0
Min. humidity 18 %
Agrigento fire, July 2023
240 ha
4 days
FWI 52.2
Min. humidity 18 %
100 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Caltagirone fire, July 2023
277 ha
2 days
FWI 51.1
Min. humidity 18 %
181 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Santa Elisabetta fire, July 2023
364 ha
2 days
FWI 54.8
Min. humidity 20 %
102 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Naro fire, July 2023
160 ha
1 day
FWI 54.3
Min. humidity 21 %
141 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Buseto Palizzolo fire, August 2019
129 ha
1 day
FWI 51.3
Min. humidity 17 %
16 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 2 days
- median duration
- 306 ha
- median area
- 20 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.1 mm
- rain at the end (median; 6 of 25 had it)
It was 2.5 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 2 days.
Only 6 of its 25 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 19 of 25, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.1 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
3.3 mmfirst rain
16 Julthe day after it ended
46km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 15 Jul, and on 16 Jul 3.3 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 6 of 25, with a median of 2.1 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 3 Jul 2017
After · 22 Jul 2017
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 24 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1055 µg/m³
WHO 15
8 Jul12 Jul16 Jul20 Jul24 Jul
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 · 32Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the San Vito Lo Capo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 July 2017 to 15 July 2017 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 July 2017 to 15 July 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 766 hectares (7.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered San Vito Lo Capo (767 ha, 13 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in San Vito Lo Capo and came within 1.9 km of its centre. 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 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
- 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 25. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 306 ha; 20 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 6 of its 25 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 19 of 25, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.1 mm.
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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 12 July 2017 to 15 July 2017. 32 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.