Castelo Branco fire, October 2017 União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo, Freixial do Campo e Juncal do Campo, Salgueiro do Campo
The fire started on 15 October 2017 in União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,657 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 15 October 2017 at 16:26 and declared extinguished on 17 October 2017.
It is the 3th largest in Castelo Branco since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 40 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.5 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
- 1,657ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 15 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- freguesias
- Started on
- 15 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 27
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 98MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
16 Oct 2017 · 98 MW · 27
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 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.5 mm on 17 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo 266 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre where it started804 ha reached on 16 Oct19 %
-
Freixial do Campo e Juncal do Campo 668 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the centre782 ha reached on 16 Oct19 %
-
Salgueiro do Campo 775 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the centre51 ha1.7 %
-
Tinalhas 513 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre21 ha reached on 16 Oct1.3 %
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 woodland63 %
- Agricultural areas23 %
- Broadleaved forest7.4 %
- Mixed forest3.4 %
- Coniferous forest3.1 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 0.41 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Official record
According to ICNF, this fire started on 15 October 2017 and burned 1,596 ha (the satellite measured 1,657 ha).
- Castelo Branco Salgueiro do Campo 15 October 2017 · 16:26 1,596 ha · extinguished on 17 October 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Oct | 31.8 °C | 20 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 16 Oct | 23.1 °C | 34 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Oct after | 20.5 °C | 43 % | 43 km/h | 7.5 mm | Very low 5 |
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 16 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 50 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 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 · 27Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,531 haCastelo Branco Louriçal do CampoAugust 2017 · 4 days · 15 km away
- 8,478 haCambasAugust 2017 · 5 days · 17 km away
- 15,536 haProença-a-Nova União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da BeiraSeptember 2020 · 8 days · 21 km away
- 68,190 haArganil Sobral de São MiguelAugust 2025 · 15 days · 22 km away
- 6,679 haCastelo Branco Montes da SenhoraAugust 2023 · 2 days · 28 km away
- 34,844 haOleiros MadeirãOctober 2017 · 8 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Castelo Branco fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 15 October 2017 at 16:26 and declared extinguished on 17 October 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,657 hectares (16.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: União das Freguesias de Ninho do Açor e Sobral do Campo (804 ha, 19 %); Freixial do Campo e Juncal do Campo (782 ha, 19 %); Salgueiro do Campo (51 ha, 1.7 %); Tinalhas (21 ha, 1.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.5 km of the centre of Freixial do Campo e Juncal do Campo, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 ›
- 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. 27 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 1,596 official ha against 1,657 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.