How long did the Pinho fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 8 October 2017 and 9 October 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 102 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pinho (50 ha, 3.7 %); Pindelo dos Milagres (43 ha, 1.8 %); Vila Maior (9 ha, 0.8 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.7 km of Vila Maior. 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 28.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2017-10-08 → 2017-10-09

Pinho fire, October 2017 Pinho, Pindelo dos Milagres, Vila Maior

Out · last detection 9 Oct 2017, 03:27 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2017 in Pinho, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 102 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 208 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.0 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: 102ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 8 Oct 2017 – 9 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 3; freguesias
Started on: 8 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 1; in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start: 36; High · FWI index
Energy released: 3MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct9 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

28°high

24km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 21.1 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Pinho 654 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town where it started

50 ha reached on 9 Oct

3.7 %
Pindelo dos Milagres 571 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town

43 ha

1.8 %
Vila Maior 872 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the town

9 ha

0.8 %

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 woodland78 %
Coniferous forest17 %
Agricultural areas5.3 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 8 October 2017 and burned 160 ha (the satellite measured 102 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

São Pedro do Sul Vila Maior 8 October 2017 · 16:12 160 ha · extinguished on 9 October 2017 · cause: arson

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)
8 Oct	28.2 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Oct	26.8 °C	21 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
10 Oct after	26.5 °C	21 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Oct after	25.5 °C	18 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
12 Oct after	28.1 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
13 Oct after	24.8 °C	38 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
14 Oct after	28.6 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Oct after	31.3 °C	20 %	60 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 44
16 Oct after	22.7 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.8 mm	High 24
17 Oct after	18.4 °C	48 %	44 km/h	21.1 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Oct 2017

After · 16 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 9 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1072 µg/m³

WHO 15

6789101112

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 · 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pinho fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 8 October 2017 and 9 October 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 102 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pinho (50 ha, 3.7 %); Pindelo dos Milagres (43 ha, 1.8 %); Vila Maior (9 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.7 km of Vila Maior. 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 28.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

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