How long did the Torre de Moncorvo fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2017 and 19 July 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 2,143 hectares (21.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 6 municipalities: Felgueiras e Maçores (692 ha, 18 %); Felgar e Souto da Velha (639 ha, 14 %); Torre de Moncorvo (295 ha, 8.2 %); Larinho (258 ha, 8.8 %); Açoreira (209 ha, 8.7 %); Carviçais (51 ha, 0.8 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 0.5 km of the centre of Açoreira, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · 2017-07-18 → 2017-07-19

Torre de Moncorvo fire, 18 July 2017 Felgueiras e Maçores, Felgar e Souto da Velha, Torre de Moncorvo

Out · last detection 19 Jul 2017, 02:24 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2017 in Torre de Moncorvo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,143 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Torre de Moncorvo since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 34 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2017 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2025 Torre de Moncorvo · 2026 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2016

Burnt area: 2,143ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 18 Jul 2017 – 19 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit: 6; freguesias
Started on: 18 Jul; 2017
Heat detections: 43; in a single hotspot: 333 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 2.0GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul19 Jul

Play back 19 Jul 2017

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 19 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

46km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (21 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

Felgueiras e Maçores 332 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre

692 ha reached on 18 Jul

18 %
Felgar e Souto da Velha 860 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the centre

639 ha reached on 19 Jul

14 %
Torre de Moncorvo 2,612 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre where it started

295 ha reached on 18 Jul

8.2 %
Larinho 327 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre

258 ha

8.8 %
Açoreira 340 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the centre

209 ha reached on 18 Jul

8.7 %
Carviçais 510 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the centre

51 ha

0.8 %

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 land67 %
Agricultural areas24 %
Scrub and transitional woodland7.6 %
Sclerophyllous scrub1.1 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015

Built-up area2.1 ha

Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.1 hectares of built-up land and about 70 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 18 July 2017 and burned 1,528 ha (the satellite measured 2,143 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Torre de Moncorvo Açoreira 18 July 2017 · 14:02 1,528 ha · extinguished on 19 July 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)
18 Jul	29.0 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Jul	24.1 °C	46 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 27
20 Jul after	25.6 °C	30 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
21 Jul after	25.2 °C	31 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Jul after	25.7 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 Jul after	28.6 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
24 Jul after	28.0 °C	29 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
25 Jul after	28.3 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
26 Jul after	30.5 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
27 Jul after	30.8 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
28 Jul after	30.2 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
29 Jul after	30.2 °C	27 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Jul 2017

After · 26 Jul 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.

Detections table · 43Every 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 Torre de Moncorvo fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2017 and 19 July 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 2,143 hectares (21.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 6 municipalities: Felgueiras e Maçores (692 ha, 18 %); Felgar e Souto da Velha (639 ha, 14 %); Torre de Moncorvo (295 ha, 8.2 %); Larinho (258 ha, 8.8 %); Açoreira (209 ha, 8.7 %); Carviçais (51 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 0.5 km of the centre of Açoreira, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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

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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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How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 43 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 1,528 official ha against 2,143 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
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.

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