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Cinfães fire, 10 August 2017 Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires, Ovadas e Panchora

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2017, 12:38 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2017 in Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 235 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 12 August 2017 at 02:02 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2017.

It is the 16th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 141 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
235ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
10 Aug 2017 – 13 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
10 Aug
2017
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
427MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug13 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

101213

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
49km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires 517 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started
    192 ha reached on 10 Aug
    5.1 %
  2. Ovadas e Panchora 283 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    44 ha reached on 10 Aug
    1.8 %

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 land93 %
  • Agricultural areas6.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 257 ha (the satellite measured 235 ha).

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)
10 Aug 23.5 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Aug 26.4 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Aug 28.4 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Aug 28.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Aug after 25.5 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
15 Aug after 23.1 °C 46 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Aug after 25.1 °C 37 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Aug after 27.9 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Aug after 26.1 °C 46 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Aug after 28.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Aug after 32.0 °C 22 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Aug after 30.9 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Aug after 27.3 °C 40 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Aug after 26.6 °C 43 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2017
After · 20 Aug 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 21 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1030 µg/m³
891011121314151617181920212223
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 · 23Every 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 Cinfães fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2017 and 13 August 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 12 August 2017 at 02:02 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 235 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires (192 ha, 5.1 %); Ovadas e Panchora (44 ha, 1.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.9 km of Ovadas e Panchora. 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 28.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, class 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.

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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.

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.