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Melgaço fire, August 2017 Cristoval, União das Freguesias de Chaviães e Paços, Fiães

Out · last detection 22 Aug 2017, 13:10 UTC

The fire started on 21 August 2017 in União das Freguesias de Chaviães e Paços, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 383 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 21 August 2017 at 00:52 and declared extinguished on 22 August 2017.

Number 106 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
383ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
21 Aug 2017 – 22 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
21 Aug
2017
Heat detections
30
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
580MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Aug22 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

2122

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
37km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.2 mm on 27 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. Cristoval 422 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town where it started
    176 ha reached on 21 Aug
    32 %
  2. União das Freguesias de Chaviães e Paços 559 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    140 ha reached on 21 Aug
    16 %
  3. Fiães 1.6 km from the town
    48 ha reached on 21 Aug
    4.2 %
  4. União das Freguesias de Vila e Roussas 2,300 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town
    19 ha reached on 21 Aug
    1.7 %

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 land61 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland16 %
  • Coniferous forest10 %
  • Mixed forest8.0 %
  • Agricultural areas3.3 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.8 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 21 August 2017 and burned 462 ha (the satellite measured 383 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)
21 Aug 33.1 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 Aug 28.2 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
23 Aug after 27.2 °C 49 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Aug after 23.7 °C 53 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Aug after 24.3 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
26 Aug after 25.9 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 21
27 Aug after 23.5 °C 61 % 39 km/h 6.2 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Aug 2017
After · 29 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 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1031 µg/m³
19202122232425
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 · 30Every 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 Melgaço fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 21 August 2017 and 22 August 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 21 August 2017 at 00:52 and declared extinguished on 22 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 383 hectares (3.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Cristoval (176 ha, 32 %); União das Freguesias de Chaviães e Paços (140 ha, 16 %); Fiães (48 ha, 4.2 %); União das Freguesias de Vila e Roussas (19 ha, 1.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of União das Freguesias de Chaviães e Paços. 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 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 37 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.

Report an error
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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.