Covilhã fire, 19 August 2017 Cortes do Meio, Covilhã e Canhoso, Tortosendo
The fire started on 19 August 2017 in Cortes do Meio, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,064 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 19 August 2017 at 15:18 and declared extinguished on 23 August 2017.
Number 26 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,064ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 7days
- 19 Aug 2017 – 25 Aug 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- freguesias
- Started on
- 19 Aug
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 180
- in a single hotspot: 516 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.6GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 18 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
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 46 ha in 2016.
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
-
2,397 ha reached on 20 Aug51 %
-
Covilhã e Canhoso 18,220 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre481 ha reached on 20 Aug18 %
-
Tortosendo 5,217 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre190 ha reached on 20 Aug11 %
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
- Other natural land45 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland35 %
- Coniferous forest12 %
- Agricultural areas6.1 %
- Mixed forest2.1 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 75 %
- LIC Serra da Estrela PTCON0014
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 9.0 hectares of built-up land and about 550 residents (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 19 August 2017 and burned 3,213 ha (the satellite measured 3,064 ha).
- Covilhã Covilhã (São Martinho) 19 August 2017 · 15:18 3,213 ha · extinguished on 23 August 2017 · cause: unknown
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Aug | 31.6 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Aug | 33.8 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Aug | 32.5 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Aug | 31.6 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Aug | 31.6 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 24 Aug | 26.7 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Aug | 28.2 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 27 % | 54 km/h | 2.7 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 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).
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 · 180Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 68,190 haArganil Sobral de São MiguelAugust 2025 · 15 days · 18 km away
- 25,260 haSerra da Estrela SameiroAugust 2022 · 18 days · 19 km away
- 19,125 haSeia Pamos Da SerraOctober 2017 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 6,531 haCastelo Branco Louriçal do CampoAugust 2017 · 4 days · 23 km away
- 8,372 haPampilhosa da Serra Fajão-VidualOctober 2017 · 4 days · 33 km away
- 23,594 haSabugal Quintas de São BartolomeuAugust 2025 · 7 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Covilhã fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2017 to 25 August 2017 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2017 to 22 August 2017. According to ICNF, it was detected on 19 August 2017 at 15:18 and declared extinguished on 23 August 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,064 hectares (30.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cortes do Meio (2,397 ha, 51 %); Covilhã e Canhoso (481 ha, 18 %); Tortosendo (190 ha, 11 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Cortes do Meio and reached its centre: 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 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 August 2017 to 22 August 2017. 180 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 3,213 official ha against 3,064 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.