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Almofala fire, October 2017 Almofala, São João de Tarouca, Alvite

Out · last detection 5 Oct 2017, 14:26 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2017 in Almofala, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 828 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Castro Daire since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 68 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
828ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
5 Oct 2017 – 5 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
5 Oct
2017
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct5 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

5

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
45km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.5 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Almofala 222 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town where it started
    521 ha reached on 5 Oct
    28 %
  2. São João de Tarouca 460 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town
    282 ha reached on 5 Oct
    15 %
  3. Alvite 1,027 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the town
    25 ha reached on 5 Oct
    1.3 %
  4. Touro 819 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the town
    1 ha reached on 5 Oct
    0.0 %

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 land75 %
  • Agricultural areas13 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland12 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 431 ha (the satellite measured 828 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)
5 Oct 26.5 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Oct after 25.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Oct after 23.7 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Oct after 26.1 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Oct after 25.3 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Oct after 25.1 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Oct after 24.3 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Oct after 26.0 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Oct after 24.4 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
14 Oct after 25.4 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Oct after 27.5 °C 21 % 59 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 42
16 Oct after 20.8 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Oct after 15.5 °C 52 % 51 km/h 11.5 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2017
After · 12 Oct 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 6 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1059 µg/m³
34567891011121314
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 · 49Every 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 Almofala fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 October 2017 and 5 October 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 828 hectares (8.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Almofala (521 ha, 28 %); São João de Tarouca (282 ha, 15 %); Alvite (25 ha, 1.3 %); Touro (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.5 km of Almofala. 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 26.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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.