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Guarda fire, 27 July 2017 Vila Fernando, Vila Garcia

Out · last detection 27 Jul 2017, 12:57 UTC

The fire started on 27 July 2017 in Vila Fernando, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 137 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Guarda since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 173 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
137ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
27 Jul 2017 – 27 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
27 Jul
2017
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
223MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jul27 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

27

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
36km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 31 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Vila Fernando 396 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town where it started
    128 ha reached on 27 Jul
    8.3 %
  2. Vila Garcia 304 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    9 ha
    0.6 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland38 %
  • Other natural land38 %
  • Agricultural areas24 %

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 104 ha (the satellite measured 137 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)
27 Jul 31.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 30.7 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jul after 31.2 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jul after 28.3 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jul after 20.2 °C 44 % 28 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Jul 2017
After · 3 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 28 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
252627282930
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 · 4Every 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 Guarda fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 July 2017 and 27 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 137 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vila Fernando (128 ha, 8.3 %); Vila Garcia (9 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Vila Fernando. 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 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.