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Vila Flor fire, July 2017 Vale Frechoso, Roios, União das Freguesias de Assares e Lodões

Out · last detection 24 Jul 2017, 13:53 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2017 in Vale Frechoso, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 941 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 23 July 2017 at 17:20 and declared extinguished on 24 July 2017.

Number 57 in Portugal in 2017, of 210.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.5 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
941ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
23 Jul 2017 – 24 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
23 Jul
2017
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
36MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul24 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

24

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
55km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 31 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. Vale Frechoso 154 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    573 ha reached on 24 Jul
    30 %
  2. Roios 148 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town where it started
    195 ha reached on 24 Jul
    13 %
  3. União das Freguesias de Assares e Lodões 214 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    166 ha
    12 %
  4. Vilas Boas e Vilarinho das Azenhas 525 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town
    8 ha
    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 land63 %
  • Agricultural areas35 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.0 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 788 ha (the satellite measured 941 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)
23 Jul 29.7 °C 29 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Jul 29.1 °C 25 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jul after 30.5 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Jul after 33.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul after 33.8 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Jul after 33.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jul after 32.1 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jul after 29.3 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul after 25.3 °C 32 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2017
After · 31 Jul 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 21 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 8 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak8 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
21222324252627
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 Vila Flor fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2017 and 24 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 23 July 2017 at 17:20 and declared extinguished on 24 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 941 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Vale Frechoso (573 ha, 30 %); Roios (195 ha, 13 %); União das Freguesias de Assares e Lodões (166 ha, 12 %); Vilas Boas e Vilarinho das Azenhas (8 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Vale Frechoso. 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 29.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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

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.