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Zelbio fire, October 2017 Veleso, Zelbio, Sormano

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2017, 13:17 UTC

The fire started on 30 October 2017 in Zelbio, Italy, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 172 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

Number 203 in Italy in 2017, of 361.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.8 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
172ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
30 Oct 2017 – 31 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
5
municipalities
Started on
30 Oct
2017
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 16 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
76MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Oct31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

30

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

The weather it burned in

10°high
52km/h · peak gust
36%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 56.2 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

  1. Veleso 208 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    78 ha reached on 30 Oct
    13 %
  2. Zelbio 188 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town where it started
    50 ha reached on 30 Oct
    11 %
  3. Sormano 648 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town
    40 ha reached on 30 Oct
    3.8 %
  4. Magreglio 684 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    3 ha
    0.8 %
  5. Lezzeno 1,923 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town
    1 ha
    0.1 %

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 land83 %
  • Broadleaved forest17 %

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)
30 Oct 10.2 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
31 Oct 8.1 °C 53 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
1 Nov after 9.1 °C 55 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
2 Nov after 7.4 °C 60 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
3 Nov after 10.4 °C 49 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
4 Nov after 7.9 °C 64 % 17 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 4
5 Nov after 6.4 °C 84 % 66 km/h 56.2 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Oct 2017
After · 7 Nov 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 · 8Every 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 Zelbio fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 October 2017 and 31 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 172 hectares (1.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Veleso (78 ha, 13 %); Zelbio (50 ha, 11 %); Sormano (40 ha, 3.8 %); Magreglio (3 ha, 0.8 %); Lezzeno (1 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Veleso. 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 10.2 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 52 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.

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.