How long did the Miranda do Douro fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 26 August 2017 and 27 August 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 306 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Picote (306 ha, 16 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of Picote. 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 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2017-08-26 → 2017-08-27

Miranda do Douro fire, August 2017 Picote

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2017, 03:33 UTC

The fire started on 26 August 2017 in Picote, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 306 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 117 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

The power measured by the satellite is low (2.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 306ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 26 Aug 2017 – 27 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; freguesias
Started on: 26 Aug; 2017
Heat detections: 4; in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 8MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

46km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 29 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Picote 230 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town where it started

306 ha reached on 27 Aug

16 %

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

Agricultural areas35 %
Scrub and transitional woodland33 %
Other natural land15 %
Broadleaved forest9.2 %
Artificial surfaces7.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 1 %

LIC Douro Internacional PTCON0022
ZEPA Douro Internacional e Vale do Águeda PTZPE0038

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, this fire started on 26 August 2017 and burned 393 ha (the satellite measured 306 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Miranda do Douro Picote 26 August 2017 · 20:03 393 ha · extinguished on 28 August 2017 · cause: unknown

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)
26 Aug	30.0 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 46
27 Aug	25.4 °C	41 %	46 km/h	9.2 mm	Very low 5
28 Aug after	26.0 °C	37 %	33 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 12
29 Aug after	24.5 °C	43 %	22 km/h	2.4 mm	Low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 19 Aug 2017

After · 3 Sept 2017

Before After

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 26 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1035 µg/m³

WHO 15

24252627282930

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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Miranda do Douro fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 26 August 2017 and 27 August 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 306 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Picote (306 ha, 16 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of Picote. 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 30.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned