How long did the Parada de Ester e Ester fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 November 2017 and 19 November 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 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Parada de Ester e Ester (119 ha, 3.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.9 km of Parada de Ester e Ester. 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 13.1 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2017-11-18 → 2017-11-19

Parada de Ester e Ester fire, November 2017 Parada de Ester e Ester

Out · last detection 19 Nov 2017, 02:19 UTC

The fire started on 18 November 2017 in Parada de Ester e Ester, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 119 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

This entry is most likely a pasture burn or a prescribed winter burn in northern Portugal, not a wildfire. In these hills scrub is burnt to renew grazing, and this fire is not in the ICNF register of rural fires. This is our assumption, based on the time of year and the lack of an official record; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.6 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: 119ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 18 Nov 2017 – 19 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; freguesias
Started on: 18 Nov; 2017
Heat detections: 12; in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start: 4; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 118MW; sum of detected power

Play back 19 Nov 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Nov19 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

1819

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

The weather it burned in

13°high

32km/h · peak gust

41%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.4 mm on 23 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Parada de Ester e Ester 744 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town where it started

119 ha reached on 18 Nov

3.0 %

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

Other natural land99 %
Agricultural areas0.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

LIC Serra de Montemuro PTCON0025

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.

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 Nov	13.1 °C	47 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
19 Nov	12.4 °C	41 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
20 Nov after	14.1 °C	38 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
21 Nov after	14.5 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
22 Nov after	12.4 °C	44 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
23 Nov after	13.4 °C	60 %	52 km/h	8.4 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Nov 2017

After · 26 Nov 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 18 November 2017 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1023 µg/m³

16171819202122

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 · 12Every 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 Parada de Ester e Ester fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 18 November 2017 and 19 November 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 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Parada de Ester e Ester (119 ha, 3.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.9 km of Parada de Ester e Ester. 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 13.1 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, 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

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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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