Amares fire, February 2023 Souto, Caldelas, Sequeiros e Paranhos
The fire started on 17 February 2023 in Caldelas, Sequeiros e Paranhos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 247 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 17 February 2023 at 04:48 and declared extinguished on 17 February 2023.
Number 15 in Portugal in 2023, of 38.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 247ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 17 Feb 2023 – 17 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 17 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 16
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 10
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 157MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
17 Feb 2023 · 157 MW · 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
It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 20 Feb.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Souto fire reached the centre126 ha reached on 17 Feb33 %
-
121 ha reached on 17 Feb11 %
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 land51 %
- Mixed forest36 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland13 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Complex of 3 fires according to ICNF
According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 281 ha (the satellite measured 247 ha).
ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Amares Caldelas 12 February 2023 · 18:16 27 ha · extinguished on 13 February 2023 · cause: arson
- 2 Amares Sequeiros 12 February 2023 · 18:26 27 ha · extinguished on 13 February 2023 · cause: arson
- 3 Amares Sequeiros 17 February 2023 · 04:48 227 ha · extinguished on 17 February 2023 · cause: arson
Total according to ICNF: 281 ha, 114 % of the 247 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Feb | 20.4 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 18 Feb after | 18.4 °C | 33 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 19 Feb after | 19.0 °C | 39 % | 28 km/h | 0.6 mm | Low 8 |
| 20 Feb after | 17.7 °C | 45 % | 27 km/h | 1.1 mm | Very low 4 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 18 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 16Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,225 haPonte da Barca Entre Ambos-os-Rios, Ermida e GermilJuly 2025 · 11 days · 17 km away
- 6,662 haArcos de Valdevez Soajo8 August 2016 · 9 days · 23 km away
- 3,074 haEntrimoSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 30 km away
- 9,224 haCabração e Moreira do LimaAugust 2016 · 5 days · 31 km away
- 2,698 haNogueira, Meixedo e Vilar de MurtedaAugust 2016 · 4 days · 34 km away
- 3,240 haMuíñosOctober 2017 · 2 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Amares fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 17 February 2023 and 17 February 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 17 February 2023 at 04:48 and declared extinguished on 17 February 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 247 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Souto (126 ha, 33 %); Caldelas, Sequeiros e Paranhos (121 ha, 11 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire reached the centre of Souto: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 20.4 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 10, class Low.
- 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 ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 16 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 281 official ha against 247 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.