How long did the Oleiros fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 22 October 2017: 8 days 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 12:02 and declared extinguished on 17 October 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 34,844 hectares (348.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 22 municipalities: Pampilhosa da Serra (8,784 ha, 87 %); Troviscal (4,268 ha, 80 %); Cadafaz e Colmeal (2,587 ha, 37 %); Madeirã (2,408 ha, 90 %); Pedrógão Pequeno (2,363 ha, 64 %); Cabril (2,215 ha, 63 %); Álvaro (2,052 ha, 70 %); Fajão-Vidual (1,710 ha, 21 %); Sobral (1,684 ha, 88 %); Oleiros-Amieira (1,090 ha, 7.6 %); Mosteiro (1,081 ha, 61 %); União das Freguesias de Cepos e Teixeira (977 ha, 30 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Pampilhosa da Serra. 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 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 2017-10-15 → 2017-10-22

Oleiros fire, October 2017 Pampilhosa da Serra, Troviscal, Cadafaz e Colmeal

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2017, 02:56 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Pampilhosa da Serra, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 34,844 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 22 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 15 October 2017 at 12:02 and declared extinguished on 17 October 2017.

Number 4 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area: 34,844ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 8days; 15 Oct 2017 – 22 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 22; freguesias
Started on: 15 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 628; in a single hotspot: 1,250 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 48.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Oct 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1516

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

61km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 162 ha in 2016.

105 ha Pampilhosa da Serra fire, September 2016 105 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Pampilhosa da Serra 1,304 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town

8,784 ha reached on 16 Oct

87 %
Troviscal 693 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town

4,268 ha reached on 15 Oct

80 %
Cadafaz e Colmeal 320 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town

2,587 ha reached on 15 Oct

37 %
Madeirã 154 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town where it started

2,408 ha reached on 15 Oct

90 %
Pedrógão Pequeno 706 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town

2,363 ha reached on 15 Oct

64 %
Cabril 244 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town

2,215 ha reached on 16 Oct

63 %
Álvaro 226 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town

2,052 ha reached on 16 Oct

70 %
Fajão-Vidual 275 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town

1,710 ha reached on 16 Oct

21 %
Sobral 0.0 km from the town

1,684 ha reached on 15 Oct

88 %
Oleiros-Amieira 2,081 inhabitants · 4.8 km from the town

1,090 ha reached on 15 Oct

7.6 %
Mosteiro 260 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town

1,081 ha reached on 15 Oct

61 %
União das Freguesias de Cepos e Teixeira 198 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town

977 ha

30 %
Portela do Fojo-Machio 452 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town

905 ha reached on 16 Oct

17 %
Sertã 6,039 inhabitants · 6.3 km from the town

878 ha reached on 15 Oct

11 %
Celavisa 142 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town

693 ha reached on 15 Oct

45 %
Ermida e Figueiredo 338 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town

373 ha reached on 15 Oct

8.8 %
Arganil 3,827 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the town

359 ha reached on 15 Oct

10 %
Cambas 254 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town

203 ha reached on 16 Oct

4.2 %
Pessegueiro 187 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town

186 ha reached on 16 Oct

5.8 %
Folques 342 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town

49 ha

2.7 %
Carvalhal 2.4 km from the town

21 ha

2.1 %
Várzea dos Cavaleiros 627 inhabitants · 3.3 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

Scrub and transitional woodland56 %
Coniferous forest19 %
Other natural land8.9 %
Mixed forest6.5 %
Broadleaved forest4.3 %
Agricultural areas4.3 %
Other land cover0.6 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %

LIC Complexo do Açor PTCON0051

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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 34,153 ha (the satellite measured 34,844 ha).

Sertã Figueiredo 15 October 2017 · 12:02 33,193 ha · extinguished on 17 October 2017 · cause: arson
Sertã Pedrógão Pequeno 15 October 2017 · 18:41 960 ha · extinguished on 17 October 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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as: Incêndio de Oleiros · Incêndio da Sertã de 15/10/2017 · Fogo de Pampilhosa da Serra
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:: Oleiros (Madeirã 15 October 2017 14,856 ha

Sertã (Figueiredo según RTP) que pasó a Pampilhosa da Serra 15 October 2017

Sources

Um ano após os incêndios. Tempo de agradecer. — Município de Oleiros, 16 October 2018 · official source
Pampilhosa da Serra perdeu 80% da floresta e 500 habitações foram afetadas — Observador, 14 November 2017
Incêndio destruiu 70 casas e 15 mil hectares de floresta em Oleiros — Observador, 18 October 2017
Sertã faz balanço trágico dos fogos e procura soluções para a economia — Correio da Manhã, 18 October 2017

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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	31.0 °C	20 %	61 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
16 Oct	23.0 °C	39 %	38 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 15
17 Oct	18.5 °C	50 %	56 km/h	12.7 mm	Very low 2
18 Oct	16.4 °C	54 %	44 km/h	18.2 mm	Very low 0
19 Oct	16.5 °C	68 %	28 km/h	0.9 mm	Very low 1
20 Oct	19.5 °C	85 %	29 km/h	1.7 mm	Very low 0
21 Oct	17.2 °C	57 %	45 km/h	0.5 mm	Very low 3
22 Oct	20.0 °C	38 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
23 Oct after	21.9 °C	38 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 11
24 Oct after	23.8 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
25 Oct after	24.6 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
26 Oct after	25.6 °C	38 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
27 Oct after	28.9 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
28 Oct after	25.9 °C	26 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
29 Oct after	25.5 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
30 Oct after	21.8 °C	35 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
31 Oct after	22.5 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
1 Nov after	20.1 °C	52 %	49 km/h	0.3 mm	Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Oct 2017

After · 29 Oct 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 16 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 205 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 138: 9.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak205 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM10229 µg/m³

WHO 15

13141516171819202122232425

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 · 628Every 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 Oleiros fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 22 October 2017: 8 days 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 12:02 and declared extinguished on 17 October 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 34,844 hectares (348.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 22 municipalities: Pampilhosa da Serra (8,784 ha, 87 %); Troviscal (4,268 ha, 80 %); Cadafaz e Colmeal (2,587 ha, 37 %); Madeirã (2,408 ha, 90 %); Pedrógão Pequeno (2,363 ha, 64 %); Cabril (2,215 ha, 63 %); Álvaro (2,052 ha, 70 %); Fajão-Vidual (1,710 ha, 21 %); Sobral (1,684 ha, 88 %); Oleiros-Amieira (1,090 ha, 7.6 %); Mosteiro (1,081 ha, 61 %); União das Freguesias de Cepos e Teixeira (977 ha, 30 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Pampilhosa da Serra. 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 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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