Skip to content
worldfires
LV · Latvia · →

Valdgales pag. fire, July 2018 Valdgales pag., Puzes pag.

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2018, 01:59 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2018 in Valdgales pag., Latvia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,483 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

The largest in Latvia in 2018, of 3.

Burnt area
1,483ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
17 Jul 2018 – 22 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
2
parishes
Started on
17 Jul
2018
Heat detections
175
in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start
14
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul22 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

181920212223

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
39%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 28 Jul.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Valdgales pag. where it started
    1,282 ha reached on 18 Jul
    6.3 %
  2. Puzes pag.
    196 ha reached on 18 Jul
    1.0 %

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 land37 %
  • Coniferous forest33 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland30 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 77 %

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.

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)
17 Jul 29.0 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Jul 28.9 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
19 Jul 25.6 °C 58 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
20 Jul 25.1 °C 59 % 30 km/h 2.1 mm Very low 2
21 Jul 25.5 °C 60 % 45 km/h 1.0 mm Very low 5
22 Jul 26.7 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Low 7
23 Jul after 26.2 °C 48 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
24 Jul after 25.6 °C 57 % 21 km/h 0.5 mm Low 10
25 Jul after 26.8 °C 49 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
26 Jul after 26.8 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
27 Jul after 27.6 °C 48 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
28 Jul after 29.3 °C 49 % 49 km/h 2.2 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jul 2018
After · 29 Jul 2018

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 · 175Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Valdgales pag. fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 July 2018 and 22 July 2018: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,483 hectares (14.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Valdgales pag. (1,282 ha, 6.3 %); Puzes pag. (196 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Latvia (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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.