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Sabrosa fire, 13 August 2017 Parada de Pinhão, União das Freguesias de Mouçós e Lamares, São Tomé do Castelo e Justes

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2017, 02:37 UTC

The fire started on 13 August 2017 in Parada de Pinhão, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 271 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 126 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Burnt area
271ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
13 Aug 2017 – 14 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
13 Aug
2017
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
355MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1314

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
41km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Parada de Pinhão 257 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    190 ha reached on 13 Aug
    34 %
  2. União das Freguesias de Mouçós e Lamares 3,182 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the town where it started
    35 ha reached on 13 Aug
    1.1 %
  3. São Tomé do Castelo e Justes 1,066 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the town
    29 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.7 %
  4. São Lourenço de Ribapinhão 318 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town
    18 ha
    1.5 %

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 forest41 %
  • Agricultural areas34 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland25 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 13 August 2017 and burned 187 ha (the satellite measured 271 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
13 Aug 30.6 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Aug 30.1 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Aug after 26.4 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 28.7 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug after 30.9 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug after 29.7 °C 35 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 30.1 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Aug after 32.8 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Aug after 33.8 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Aug after 30.8 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Aug after 31.0 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug after 25.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Aug 2017
After · 21 Aug 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 14 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
11121314151617
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 · 17Every 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 Sabrosa fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 August 2017 and 14 August 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 271 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Parada de Pinhão (190 ha, 34 %); União das Freguesias de Mouçós e Lamares (35 ha, 1.1 %); São Tomé do Castelo e Justes (29 ha, 0.7 %); São Lourenço de Ribapinhão (18 ha, 1.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Parada de Pinhão. 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 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.