How long did the Castelo Branco fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2017 and 28 July 2017: 6 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 23 July 2017 at 17:55 and declared extinguished on 27 July 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,718 hectares (47.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 6 municipalities: Vila Velha de Ródão (2,132 ha, 24 %); Santo André das Tojeiras (770 ha, 10 %); Montalvão (680 ha, 5.5 %); Fratel (527 ha, 5.4 %); Santana (331 ha, 12 %); Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão (285 ha, 1.8 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire reached the centre of Vila Velha de Ródão: 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 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.

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.

PT · Portugal · 2017-07-23 → 2017-07-28

Castelo Branco fire, 23 July 2017 Vila Velha de Ródão, Santo André das Tojeiras, Montalvão

Out · last detection 28 Jul 2017, 02:56 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2017 in Santo André das Tojeiras, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,718 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 23 July 2017 at 17:55 and declared extinguished on 27 July 2017.

It is the 2th largest in Castelo Branco since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 18 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Castelo Branco · 2023 Sertã · 2017 Proença-a-Nova · 2020 Oleiros · 2020

Burnt area: 4,718ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 23 Jul 2017 – 28 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 6; freguesias
Started on: 23 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 206; in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 400MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul28 Jul

Play back 28 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

24 Jul 25 Jul 26 Jul 27 Jul 28 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

49km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3% of the area of London (47 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Vila Velha de Ródão 1,755 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

2,132 ha reached on 24 Jul

24 %
Santo André das Tojeiras 588 inhabitants · 4.8 km from the centre where it started

770 ha reached on 24 Jul

10 %
Montalvão 290 inhabitants · 6.1 km from the centre

680 ha reached on 27 Jul

5.5 %
Fratel 500 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre

527 ha reached on 25 Jul

5.4 %
Santana 277 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre

331 ha reached on 26 Jul

12 %
Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão 2,997 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre

285 ha reached on 27 Jul

1.8 %

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

Scrub and transitional woodland43 %
Agricultural areas25 %
Other natural land14 %
Coniferous forest10 %
Sclerophyllous scrub5.3 %
Broadleaved forest1.9 %
Mixed forest0.6 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 27 %

LIC São Mamede PTCON0007

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 23 July 2017 and burned 4,532 ha (the satellite measured 4,718 ha).

Castelo Branco Santo André das Tojeiras 23 July 2017 · 17:55 4,532 ha · extinguished on 27 July 2017 · cause: arson

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)
23 Jul	33.8 °C	24 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
24 Jul	34.0 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
25 Jul	35.5 °C	18 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
26 Jul	36.2 °C	19 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
27 Jul	36.6 °C	14 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
28 Jul	35.5 °C	22 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
29 Jul after	36.5 °C	20 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
30 Jul after	33.3 °C	22 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
31 Jul after	28.0 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 46
1 Aug after	29.6 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
2 Aug after	33.5 °C	17 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
3 Aug after	35.0 °C	26 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
4 Aug after	37.9 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
5 Aug after	36.2 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 50
6 Aug after	35.0 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
7 Aug after	31.8 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Jul 2017

After · 4 Aug 2017

Before After

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 23 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1023 µg/m³

WHO 15

2122232425262728293031

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 · 206Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

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Frequently asked questions

How long did the Castelo Branco fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2017 and 28 July 2017: 6 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 23 July 2017 at 17:55 and declared extinguished on 27 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,718 hectares (47.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 6 municipalities: Vila Velha de Ródão (2,132 ha, 24 %); Santo André das Tojeiras (770 ha, 10 %); Montalvão (680 ha, 5.5 %); Fratel (527 ha, 5.4 %); Santana (331 ha, 12 %); Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão (285 ha, 1.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire reached the centre of Vila Velha de Ródão: 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 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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. 206 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 4,532 official ha against 4,718 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.

Where it burned