How long did the Celorico de Basto fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 21 April 2017 and 23 April 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 21 April 2017 at 21:23 and declared extinguished on 22 April 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 277 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Arnoia (134 ha, 7.1 %); Rebordelo (76 ha, 4.8 %); Britelo, Gémeos e Ourilhe (36 ha, 2.1 %); Campanhó e Paradança (31 ha, 1.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 1.6 km of the centre of Rebordelo, 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 24.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.

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 · 2017-04-21 → 2017-04-23

Celorico de Basto fire, April 2017 Arnoia, Rebordelo, Britelo, Gémeos e Ourilhe

Out · last detection 23 Apr 2017, 02:55 UTC

The fire started on 21 April 2017 in Campanhó e Paradança, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 277 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 21 April 2017 at 21:23 and declared extinguished on 22 April 2017.

Number 125 in Portugal in 2017, of 211.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Celorico de Basto · 2024 Vila Real · 2025 União das Freguesias de Campelo e Ovil e Loivos do Monte · 2024 Vila Real · 2022

Burnt area: 277ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 3days; 21 Apr 2017 – 23 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit: 4; freguesias
Started on: 21 Apr; 2017
Heat detections: 6; in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 75MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Apr23 Apr

Play back 23 Apr 2017

How it evolved, day by day

21 Apr 22 Apr 23 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

25°high

45km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 24 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Arnoia 1,512 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre

134 ha reached on 22 Apr

7.1 %
Rebordelo 267 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre

76 ha reached on 21 Apr

4.8 %
Britelo, Gémeos e Ourilhe 3,432 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the centre

36 ha

2.1 %
Campanhó e Paradança 600 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre where it started

31 ha reached on 21 Apr

1.0 %

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 woodland95 %
Coniferous forest4.3 %
Mixed forest1.1 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015

Built-up area0.23 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.23 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

Complex of 2 fires according to ICNF

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 294 ha (the satellite measured 277 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.

When each one burned

1 69 ha 2 225 ha

21 Apr22 Apr

rekindling

1 Mondim de Basto Paradança 21 April 2017 · 13:20 69 ha · extinguished on 22 April 2017 · cause: rekindling
2 Celorico de Basto Britelo 21 April 2017 · 21:23 225 ha · extinguished on 22 April 2017 · cause: rekindling

Total according to ICNF: 294 ha, 106 % of the 277 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)
21 Apr	24.3 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
22 Apr	24.7 °C	33 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
23 Apr	24.7 °C	42 %	24 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 13
24 Apr after	23.2 °C	56 %	28 km/h	1.8 mm	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Apr 2017

After · 30 Apr 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 25 April 2017 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1037 µg/m³

WHO 15

1920212223242526

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 · 6Every 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

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Celorico de Basto fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 21 April 2017 and 23 April 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 21 April 2017 at 21:23 and declared extinguished on 22 April 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 277 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Arnoia (134 ha, 7.1 %); Rebordelo (76 ha, 4.8 %); Britelo, Gémeos e Ourilhe (36 ha, 2.1 %); Campanhó e Paradança (31 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 1.6 km of the centre of Rebordelo, 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 24.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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

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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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How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 6 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 294 official ha against 277 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.

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