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Ouca fire, June 2017 Covões e Camarneira, União das Freguesias de Ponte de Vagos e Santa Catarina, Ouca

Out · last detection 23 Jun 2017, 13:34 UTC

The fire started on 23 June 2017 in Ouca, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 388 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 104 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
388ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
23 Jun 2017 – 23 Jun 2017
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
23 Jun
2017
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
2MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jun23 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

23

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

The weather it burned in

23°high
40km/h · peak gust
59%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 27 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Covões e Camarneira 2,754 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town
    258 ha
    7.0 %
  2. União das Freguesias de Ponte de Vagos e Santa Catarina 991 inhabitants · 4.3 km from the town
    80 ha
    6.0 %
  3. Ouca 1,750 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town where it started
    51 ha reached on 23 Jun
    3.1 %

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

  • Mixed forest43 %
  • Agricultural areas34 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland16 %
  • Coniferous forest6.6 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

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)
23 Jun 23.3 °C 59 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Jun after 22.4 °C 60 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Jun after 22.0 °C 69 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
26 Jun after 22.3 °C 68 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
27 Jun after 22.1 °C 71 % 38 km/h 1.4 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jun 2017
After · 30 Jun 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.

Detections table · 1Every 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 Ouca fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 June 2017 and 23 June 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 388 hectares (3.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Covões e Camarneira (258 ha, 7.0 %); União das Freguesias de Ponte de Vagos e Santa Catarina (80 ha, 6.0 %); Ouca (51 ha, 3.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Ouca. 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 23.3 °C, humidity dropped to 59 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
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.

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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.