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Gosende fire, October 2017 Felgueiras e Feirão, Gosende, Ovadas e Panchora

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2017, 14:38 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2017 in Gosende, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,623 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 12 recorded fires was detected on 15 October 2017 at 10:26 and declared extinguished on 16 October 2017.

It is the 2th largest in Castro Daire since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 41 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
1,623ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
14 Oct 2017 – 15 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
6
freguesias
Started on
14 Oct
2017
Heat detections
62
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1415

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
64km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 23.4 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 288 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Felgueiras e Feirão 364 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    645 ha reached on 14 Oct
    49 %
  2. Gosende 368 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town where it started
    589 ha reached on 13 Oct
    29 %
  3. Ovadas e Panchora 283 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    199 ha reached on 13 Oct
    8.3 %
  4. Bigorne, Magueija e Pretarouca 575 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the town
    172 ha reached on 15 Oct
    8.6 %
  5. Paus 421 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town
    20 ha
    1.5 %
  6. Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires 517 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    0 ha reached on 13 Oct
    0.0 %

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 land80 %
  • Agricultural areas19 %
  • Other land cover0.6 %

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, 12 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,585 ha (the satellite measured 1,623 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)
14 Oct 24.8 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Oct 27.5 °C 20 % 64 km/h 0.7 mm High 33
16 Oct after 19.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 16
17 Oct after 14.8 °C 47 % 45 km/h 23.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Oct 2017
After · 22 Oct 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.

Detections table · 62Every 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 Gosende fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 October 2017 and 15 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 12 recorded fires was detected on 15 October 2017 at 10:26 and declared extinguished on 16 October 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,623 hectares (16.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Felgueiras e Feirão (645 ha, 49 %); Gosende (589 ha, 29 %); Ovadas e Panchora (199 ha, 8.3 %); Bigorne, Magueija e Pretarouca (172 ha, 8.6 %); Paus (20 ha, 1.5 %); Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Felgueiras e Feirão. 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 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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.