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Alijó fire, June 2017 Vila Verde

Out · last detection 16 Jun 2017, 14:06 UTC

The fire started on 16 June 2017 in Vila Verde, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 106 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 13th largest in Alijó since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 203 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
106ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
16 Jun 2017 – 17 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
1
freguesias
Started on
16 Jun
2017
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 543 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jun17 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

16

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
27km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 19 Jun.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Vila Verde 2.2 km from the town where it started
    106 ha reached on 16 Jun
    2.5 %

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 land100 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 16 June 2017 and burned 167 ha (the satellite measured 106 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
16 Jun 34.0 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
17 Jun 35.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jun after 34.0 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jun after 31.4 °C 29 % 37 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jun 2017
After · 24 Jun 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 19 June 2017 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1040 µg/m³
14151617181920
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 · 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 Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Alijó fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 June 2017 and 17 June 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 106 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Vila Verde (106 ha, 2.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.2 km of Vila Verde. 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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

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.

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.