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Torre de Moncorvo fire, August 2017 Carviçais, Castelo Branco, União das Freguesias de Lagoaça e Fornos

Out · last measured on 16 Aug 2017

The fire started on 16 August 2017 in Carviçais, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 957 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 August 2017 at 15:46 and declared extinguished on 15 August 2017.

It is the 5th largest in Torre de Moncorvo since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 56 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2016Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2025Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2017Torre de Moncorvo · 2020

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
957ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
16 Aug 2017 – 16 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
16 Aug
2017
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
31km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (9.6 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

  1. Carviçais 510 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the centre where it started
    607 ha
    9.6 %
  2. Castelo Branco 4.8 km from the centre
    209 ha
    3.8 %
  3. União das Freguesias de Lagoaça e Fornos 443 inhabitants · 7.5 km from the centre
    143 ha
    2.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas38 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland30 %
  • Other natural land21 %
  • Broadleaved forest10 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 14 August 2017 and burned 974 ha (the satellite measured 957 ha).

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)
16 Aug 31.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 33.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 30.9 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Aug after 32.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Aug after 35.1 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Aug after 37.3 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Aug after 34.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Aug after 33.6 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Aug after 30.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Aug after 30.3 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Aug after 31.5 °C 21 % 58 km/h 0.9 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2017
After · 23 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 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
141516171819
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Torre de Moncorvo fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 August 2017 and 16 August 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 August 2017 at 15:46 and declared extinguished on 15 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 957 hectares (9.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Carviçais (607 ha, 9.6 %); Castelo Branco (209 ha, 3.8 %); União das Freguesias de Lagoaça e Fornos (143 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Carviçais and came within 3.8 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 31.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

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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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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 974 official ha against 957 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.