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Penacova fire, February 2017 Friúmes e Paradela, Penacova

Out · last detection 21 Feb 2017, 13:22 UTC

The fire started on 21 February 2017 in Penacova, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 119 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 192 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
119ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
21 Feb 2017 – 21 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
21 Feb
2017
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
77MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Feb21 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

21 Feb 2017 · 77 MW · 4

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

The weather it burned in

19°high
30km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 27 Feb.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Friúmes e Paradela 813 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    63 ha reached on 21 Feb
    2.9 %
  2. Penacova 2,824 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started
    56 ha reached on 21 Feb
    1.7 %

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 woodland89 %
  • Broadleaved forest11 %

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)
21 Feb 18.9 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
22 Feb after 20.1 °C 40 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
23 Feb after 16.9 °C 62 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
24 Feb after 18.4 °C 52 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
25 Feb after 16.7 °C 51 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
26 Feb after 13.1 °C 74 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
27 Feb after 12.3 °C 76 % 42 km/h 1.6 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Feb 2017
After · 28 Feb 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 February 2017 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1062 µg/m³
192021222324
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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Penacova fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 21 February 2017 and 21 February 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 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Friúmes e Paradela (63 ha, 2.9 %); Penacova (56 ha, 1.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Friúmes e Paradela. 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 18.9 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, 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

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.