Oleiros fire, June 2017 Orvalho, Estreito-Vilar Barroco, Janeiro de Cima e Bogas de Baixo
The fire started on 18 June 2017 in Orvalho, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 655 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 17 June 2017 at 18:09 and declared extinguished on 20 June 2017.
Number 81 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.
The power measured by the satellite is low (29.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 655ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 18 Jun 2017 – 18 Jun 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- freguesias
- Started on
- 18 Jun
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 35
- in a single hotspot: 29 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 217MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
18 Jun 2017 · 217 MW · 35
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 28 Jun.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
576 ha reached on 18 Jun17 %
-
Estreito-Vilar Barroco 834 inhabitants · 7.2 km from the centre40 ha reached on 18 Jun0.4 %
-
Janeiro de Cima e Bogas de Baixo 425 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the centre40 ha0.9 %
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 land88 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland9.3 %
- Agricultural areas3.2 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Complex of 2 fires according to ICNF
According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 611 ha (the satellite measured 655 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.
- 1 Oleiros Orvalho 17 June 2017 · 18:08 202 ha · extinguished on 17 June 2017 · cause: natural (lightning)
- 2 Oleiros Orvalho 17 June 2017 · 18:09 409 ha · extinguished on 20 June 2017 · cause: natural (lightning)
Total according to ICNF: 611 ha, 93 % of the 655 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jun | 35.2 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Jun after | 33.7 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Jun after | 34.1 °C | 25 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Jun after | 32.7 °C | 31 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Jun after | 28.5 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Jun after | 28.9 °C | 31 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Jun after | 26.6 °C | 32 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Jun after | 24.8 °C | 43 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Jun after | 24.6 °C | 46 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 27 Jun after | 22.3 °C | 49 % | 52 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 28 |
| 28 Jun after | 20.8 °C | 49 % | 57 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 10 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 18 June 2017 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 35Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Oleiros fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 18 June 2017 and 18 June 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 17 June 2017 at 18:09 and declared extinguished on 20 June 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 655 hectares (6.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Orvalho (576 ha, 17 %); Estreito-Vilar Barroco (40 ha, 0.4 %); Janeiro de Cima e Bogas de Baixo (40 ha, 0.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Orvalho and came within 2.9 km of its centre. 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 35 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 611 official ha against 655 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.