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Melgaço fire, February 2023 Gavieira, Castro Laboreiro e Lamas de Mouro

Out · last measured on 20 Feb 2023

The fire started on 20 February 2023 in Gavieira, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 135 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 20 February 2023 at 09:00 and declared extinguished on 20 February 2023.

It is the 22th largest in Arcos de Valdevez since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 31 in Portugal in 2023, of 38.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Castro Laboreiro e Lamas de Mouro · 2017Arcos de Valdevez · 2016Monção · 2017As Neves · 2017

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
135ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
20 Feb 2023 – 20 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
20 Feb
2023
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

13°high
25km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.0 mm on 21 Feb.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Gavieira 258 inhabitants · 7.1 km from the centre where it started
    68 ha
    1.2 %
  2. Castro Laboreiro e Lamas de Mouro 503 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the centre
    68 ha
    0.6 %

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 land98 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.2 %

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

Complex of 2 fires according to ICNF

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 148 ha (the satellite measured 135 ha).

ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 5 ha 2 143 ha
19 Feb21 Feb
negligence
  1. 1 Arcos de Valdevez Gavieira 19 February 2023 · 16:21 5 ha · extinguished on 20 February 2023 · cause: negligence
  2. 2 Melgaço Lamas de Mouro 20 February 2023 · 09:00 143 ha · extinguished on 20 February 2023 · cause: negligence

Total according to ICNF: 148 ha, 110 % of the 135 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
20 Feb 12.6 °C 48 % 25 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 0
21 Feb after 9.0 °C 72 % 32 km/h 13.0 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Feb 2023
After · 27 Feb 2023

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 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1049 µg/m³
Optical depth0.90
181920212223
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Melgaço fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 February 2023 and 20 February 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 20 February 2023 at 09:00 and declared extinguished on 20 February 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 135 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gavieira (68 ha, 1.2 %); Castro Laboreiro e Lamas de Mouro (68 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 3.1 km of the centre of Castro Laboreiro e Lamas de Mouro, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 12.6 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 25 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, class Very low.
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 ›

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 148 official ha against 135 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.