How long did the Torre de Moncorvo fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 7 September 2017 and 7 September 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 150 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde (136 ha, 2.7 %); Adeganha e Cardanha (14 ha, 0.2 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde and came within 3.2 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 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 28 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.

PT · Portugal · 2017-09-07 → 2017-09-07

Torre de Moncorvo fire, September 2017 Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde, Adeganha e Cardanha

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

The fire started on 7 September 2017 in Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 150 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 164 in Portugal in 2017, of 211.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.1 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: Mirandela · 2025 Torre de Moncorvo · 2026 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2025 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2017

Burnt area: 150ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 7 Sept 2017 – 7 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; freguesias
Started on: 7 Sept; 2017
Heat detections: 14; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 27; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 122MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Sept7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

7 Sept 2017 · 122 MW · 14

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

28km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 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

Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde 266 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the centre where it started

136 ha reached on 7 Sept

2.7 %
Adeganha e Cardanha 437 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre

14 ha reached on 7 Sept

0.2 %

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

Other natural land78 %
Agricultural areas22 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 7 September 2017 and burned 117 ha (the satellite measured 150 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Torre de Moncorvo Adeganha 7 September 2017 · 01:12 117 ha · extinguished on 7 September 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	Danger (FWI)
7 Sept	29.6 °C	22 %	28 km/h	High 27
8 Sept after	29.8 °C	23 %	38 km/h	High 31
9 Sept after	22.3 °C	36 %	50 km/h	High 30
10 Sept after	25.1 °C	36 %	36 km/h	High 26
11 Sept after	27.6 °C	36 %	40 km/h	High 29
12 Sept after	25.2 °C	47 %	35 km/h	High 23
13 Sept after	29.1 °C	32 %	30 km/h	High 25
14 Sept after	26.2 °C	38 %	37 km/h	High 27
15 Sept after	21.9 °C	28 %	41 km/h	High 28
16 Sept after	20.9 °C	30 %	32 km/h	High 26
17 Sept after	22.0 °C	36 %	32 km/h	High 25

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Aug 2017

After · 14 Sept 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 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

PM1022 µg/m³

5678910

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 · 14Every 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 7 September 2017 and 7 September 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 150 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde (136 ha, 2.7 %); Adeganha e Cardanha (14 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde and came within 3.2 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 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 28 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 · 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. 14 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 117 official ha against 150 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