How long did the Sabugal fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 October 2017 to 12 October 2017 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 October 2017 to 11 October 2017. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 7 October 2017 at 00:20 and declared extinguished on 7 October 2017.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 504 hectares (5.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sortelha (493 ha, 12 %); Águas Belas (12 ha, 0.6 %); Sabugal e Aldeia de Santo António (0 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Sortelha and came within 0.6 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2017-10-07 → 2017-10-12

Sabugal fire, 7 October 2017 Sortelha, Águas Belas, Sabugal e Aldeia de Santo António

Out · last detection 12 Oct 2017, 02:31 UTC

The fire started on 7 October 2017 in Sortelha, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 504 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 7 October 2017 at 00:20 and declared extinguished on 7 October 2017.

It is the 6th largest in Sabugal since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 94 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sabugal · 2025 Serra da Estrela · 2022 Guarda · 2017 Guarda · 2025

Burnt area: 504ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 7 Oct 2017 – 12 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 3; freguesias
Started on: 7 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 47; in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 86MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Oct12 Oct

Play back 12 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

7 Oct 8 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

27°high

22km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.4 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.3% of the area of London (5 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Sortelha 320 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre where it started

493 ha reached on 7 Oct

12 %
Águas Belas 1.2 km from the centre

12 ha

0.6 %
Sabugal e Aldeia de Santo António 2,604 inhabitants · 7.5 km from the centre

0 ha

0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Other natural land87 %
Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
Agricultural areas1.2 %

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

Official record

Complex of 2 fires according to ICNF

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 447 ha (the satellite measured 504 ha).

ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 392 ha 2 55 ha

7 Oct9 Oct

arson

1 Sabugal Sortelha 7 October 2017 · 00:20 392 ha · extinguished on 7 October 2017 · cause: arson
2 Sabugal Águas Belas 8 October 2017 · 13:19 55 ha · extinguished on 8 October 2017 · cause: arson

Total according to ICNF: 447 ha, 89 % of the 504 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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	26.9 °C	12 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Oct	26.4 °C	12 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Oct	25.6 °C	14 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
11 Oct	25.2 °C	13 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
12 Oct	26.4 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
13 Oct after	24.3 °C	31 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
14 Oct after	26.5 °C	23 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
15 Oct after	29.4 °C	19 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
16 Oct after	21.0 °C	32 %	43 km/h	0.1 mm	High 36
17 Oct after	17.2 °C	47 %	46 km/h	16.4 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Sept 2017

After · 19 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 10 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM1061 µg/m³

WHO 15

56789101112131415

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 · 47Every 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 Sabugal fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 October 2017 to 12 October 2017 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 October 2017 to 11 October 2017. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 7 October 2017 at 00:20 and declared extinguished on 7 October 2017.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 504 hectares (5.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sortelha (493 ha, 12 %); Águas Belas (12 ha, 0.6 %); Sabugal e Aldeia de Santo António (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Sortelha and came within 0.6 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 do you think is wrong?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 October 2017 to 11 October 2017. 47 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 447 official ha against 504 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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