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Vasia fire, January 2017 Montalto Carpasio, Prelà, Vasia

Out · last detection 20 Jan 2017, 01:58 UTC

The fire started on 17 January 2017 in Vasia, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,604 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities.

Number 10 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.0 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
1,604ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
17 Jan 2017 – 20 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
6
municipalities
Started on
17 Jan
2017
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
459MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jan20 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

181920

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

The weather it burned in

7°high
81km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.3 mm on 22 Jan.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Montalto Carpasio
    472 ha reached on 18 Jan
    16 %
  2. Prelà 471 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    466 ha reached on 18 Jan
    31 %
  3. Vasia 371 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town where it started
    443 ha reached on 18 Jan
    40 %
  4. Borgomaro
    168 ha reached on 18 Jan
    7.2 %
  5. Lucinasco 295 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    47 ha reached on 18 Jan
    5.9 %
  6. Dolcedo 1,246 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the town
    8 ha
    0.4 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest53 %
  • Other natural land41 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland5.3 %
  • Agricultural areas0.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 9 %

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)
17 Jan 2.9 °C 30 % 81 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
18 Jan 5.2 °C 34 % 77 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
19 Jan 5.9 °C 39 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
20 Jan 6.6 °C 42 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
21 Jan after 7.8 °C 38 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
22 Jan after 5.4 °C 45 % 65 km/h 5.3 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jan 2017
After · 27 Jan 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.

Detections table · 95Every 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 Vasia fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 January 2017 and 20 January 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 1,604 hectares (16.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Montalto Carpasio (472 ha, 16 %); Prelà (466 ha, 31 %); Vasia (443 ha, 40 %); Borgomaro (168 ha, 7.2 %); Lucinasco (47 ha, 5.9 %); Dolcedo (8 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.3 km of Vasia. 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 6.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 81 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, 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

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.

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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.