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Covilhã fire, 8 August 2017 Cortes do Meio, Unhais da Serra

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2017, 03:14 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2017 in Cortes do Meio, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,220 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 48 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
1,220ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
8 Aug 2017 – 12 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
8 Aug
2017
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 327 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
47km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cortes do Meio 746 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    828 ha reached on 10 Aug
    18 %
  2. Unhais da Serra 1,049 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town where it started
    393 ha reached on 8 Aug
    13 %

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 land48 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland38 %
  • Coniferous forest13 %
  • Agricultural areas0.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 99 %

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 7 August 2017 and burned 915 ha (the satellite measured 1,220 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
8 Aug 23.8 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Aug 22.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 24.5 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 27.7 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Aug 29.7 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Aug after 30.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Aug after 30.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug after 26.6 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Aug after 28.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Aug after 30.6 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Aug after 29.2 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Aug after 30.8 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug after 33.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Aug after 31.6 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Aug after 30.8 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Aug after 30.8 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Aug after 25.8 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug after 27.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug after 27.2 °C 26 % 54 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2017
After · 19 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 20 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1066 µg/m³
6789101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 82Every 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 Covilhã fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2017 and 12 August 2017: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,220 hectares (12.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cortes do Meio (828 ha, 18 %); Unhais da Serra (393 ha, 13 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.5 km of Unhais da Serra. 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 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.