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Melgaço fire, October 2017 São Paio, União das Freguesias de Vila e Roussas, Parada do Monte e Cubalhão

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2017, 12:58 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2017 in União das Freguesias de Vila e Roussas, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 982 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 15 October 2017 at 11:28 and declared extinguished on 16 October 2017.

Number 54 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
982ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
15 Oct 2017 – 15 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
6
freguesias
Started on
15 Oct
2017
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
305MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

15

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
56km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.4 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 57 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. São Paio 0.0 km from the town
    510 ha reached on 15 Oct
    51 %
  2. União das Freguesias de Vila e Roussas 2,300 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the town
    403 ha reached on 15 Oct
    35 %
  3. Parada do Monte e Cubalhão 477 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town where it started
    30 ha reached on 15 Oct
    1.0 %
  4. Fiães 1.3 km from the town
    28 ha
    2.5 %
  5. União das Freguesias de Chaviães e Paços 559 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    11 ha
    1.2 %
  6. Castro Laboreiro e Lamas de Mouro 503 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the town
    1 ha
    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 land53 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland20 %
  • Broadleaved forest11 %
  • Mixed forest7.9 %
  • Agricultural areas7.5 %

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 880 ha (the satellite measured 982 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)
15 Oct 28.2 °C 27 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Oct after 19.6 °C 50 % 58 km/h 16.4 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 15 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 104 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak104 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM10117 µg/m³
131415161718
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 · 19Every 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 15 October 2017 and 15 October 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 15 October 2017 at 11:28 and declared extinguished on 16 October 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 982 hectares (9.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: São Paio (510 ha, 51 %); União das Freguesias de Vila e Roussas (403 ha, 35 %); Parada do Monte e Cubalhão (30 ha, 1.0 %); Fiães (28 ha, 2.5 %); União das Freguesias de Chaviães e Paços (11 ha, 1.2 %); Castro Laboreiro e Lamas de Mouro (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of São Paio. 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 28.2 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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.