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Talhas fire, September 2017 Talhas, Matela

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2017, 03:27 UTC

The fire started on 6 September 2017 in Talhas, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 155 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 159 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.5 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
155ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
6 Sept 2017 – 7 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
6 Sept
2017
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
31MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Sept7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

7

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
39km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 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. Talhas 256 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town where it started
    149 ha reached on 7 Sept
    3.4 %
  2. Matela 211 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town
    7 ha reached on 7 Sept
    0.2 %

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

  • Other natural land47 %
  • Agricultural areas43 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland10 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 41 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 6 September 2017 and burned 102 ha (the satellite measured 155 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)
6 Sept 31.2 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Sept 29.6 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Sept after 29.9 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Sept after 22.1 °C 36 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
10 Sept after 25.4 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Sept after 27.7 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Sept after 25.0 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Sept after 29.1 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
14 Sept after 26.3 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Sept after 22.3 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Sept after 21.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Sept after 21.9 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Aug 2017
After · 14 Sept 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 8 September 2017 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
45678910
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 · 10Every 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 Talhas fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 September 2017 and 7 September 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 155 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Talhas (149 ha, 3.4 %); Matela (7 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.8 km of Talhas. 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 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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

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.