Sabugal fire, 15 October 2017 Adão, Pousafoles do Bispo, Pena Lobo e Lomba, Pega
The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Adão, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,051 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 15 October 2017 at 18:50 and declared extinguished on 17 October 2017.
It is the 3th largest in Guarda since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 36 in Portugal in 2017, of 211.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,051ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 15 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 6
- freguesias
- Started on
- 15 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 132
- in a single hotspot: 84 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.2GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
16 Oct 2017 · 2,206 MW · 132
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.7 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?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,142 ha reached on 16 Oct41 %
-
Pousafoles do Bispo, Pena Lobo e Lomba 390 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre371 ha reached on 16 Oct9.7 %
-
Pega 121 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre242 ha reached on 16 Oct23 %
-
Santana da Azinha 529 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre188 ha12 %
-
Vila Fernando fire reached the centre75 ha reached on 16 Oct100 %
-
Vila Fernando 396 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre36 ha reached on 16 Oct2.3 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland43 %
- Agricultural areas32 %
- Other natural land19 %
- Mixed forest3.8 %
- Broadleaved forest1.0 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 5.0 hectares of built-up land and about 100 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Official record
According to ICNF, this fire started on 15 October 2017 and burned 2,165 ha (the satellite measured 2,051 ha).
- Sabugal Pousafoles do Bispo 15 October 2017 · 18:50 2,165 ha · extinguished on 17 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Oct | 28.5 °C | 21 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Oct | 22.1 °C | 34 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Oct after | 16.9 °C | 50 % | 55 km/h | 8.7 mm | Very low 4 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 16 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 132Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 23,594 haSabugal Quintas de São BartolomeuAugust 2025 · 7 days · 8 km away
- 8,991 haGuarda Rochoso e Monte Margarida17 July 2017 · 3 days · 18 km away
- 5,226 haGuarda CerdeiraJuly 2026 · 3 days · 19 km away
- 25,260 haSerra da Estrela SameiroAugust 2022 · 18 days · 26 km away
- 9,523 haGuarda Alverca da Beira/Bouça CovaAugust 2025 · 3 days · 28 km away
- 19,125 haSeia Pamos Da SerraOctober 2017 · 8 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sabugal fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 15 October 2017 at 18:50 and declared extinguished on 17 October 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,051 hectares (20.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 6 municipalities: Adão (1,142 ha, 41 %); Pousafoles do Bispo, Pena Lobo e Lomba (371 ha, 9.7 %); Pega (242 ha, 23 %); Santana da Azinha (188 ha, 12 %); Vila Fernando (75 ha, 100 %); Vila Fernando (36 ha, 2.3 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Adão and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
- 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 ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 132 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 2,165 official ha against 2,051 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.