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Aldeia das Dez fire, August 2017 Aldeia das Dez, União das Freguesias de Vide e Cabeça, Pomares

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2017, 02:37 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2017 in Aldeia das Dez, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 125 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 13 August 2017 at 16:28 and declared extinguished on 14 August 2017.

Number 184 in Portugal in 2017, of 211.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

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Burnt area
125ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
14 Aug 2017 – 14 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
14 Aug
2017
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
6MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

14 Aug 2017 · 6 MW · 2

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
41km/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. Aldeia das Dez 474 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the centre where it started
    118 ha reached on 14 Aug
    6.3 %
  2. União das Freguesias de Vide e Cabeça 570 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the centre
    6 ha
    0.1 %
  3. Pomares 431 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the centre
    1 ha
    0.0 %
  4. Piódão 120 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 land100 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 13 August 2017 and burned 146 ha (the satellite measured 125 ha).

ICNF (Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas). This is the agency’s operational record: its figures may be revised when the year’s statistics are closed.

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)
14 Aug 27.9 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug after 24.3 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Aug after 26.6 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug after 29.3 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
18 Aug after 27.5 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Aug after 30.1 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug after 33.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Aug after 30.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug after 28.2 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug after 28.4 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug after 24.0 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2017
After · 21 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 13 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1040 µg/m³
121314151617
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 · 2Every 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 Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aldeia das Dez fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2017 and 14 August 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 13 August 2017 at 16:28 and declared extinguished on 14 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 125 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Aldeia das Dez (118 ha, 6.3 %); União das Freguesias de Vide e Cabeça (6 ha, 0.1 %); Pomares (1 ha, 0.0 %); Piódão (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Aldeia das Dez and came within 3.5 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 27.9 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Portugal (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 · 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

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 146 official ha against 125 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). 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.