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Abrantes fire, July 2020 Fontes, Carvalhal

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2020, 13:40 UTC

The fire started on 22 July 2020 in Fontes, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 212 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 22 July 2020 at 13:27 and declared extinguished on 22 July 2020.

Number 39 in Portugal in 2020, of 67.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.3 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
212ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
22 Jul 2020 – 22 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
22 Jul
2020
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
15MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jul22 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

22

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
41km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 112 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Fontes 469 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town where it started
    137 ha reached on 22 Jul
    4.8 %
  2. Carvalhal 0.5 km from the town
    75 ha
    4.3 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland89 %
  • Broadleaved forest11 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 22 July 2020 and burned 262 ha (the satellite measured 212 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)
22 Jul 34.0 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jul after 34.3 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul after 32.6 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul after 33.0 °C 26 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Jul after 35.4 °C 25 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jul after 31.8 °C 36 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jul after 31.7 °C 40 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jul after 35.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jul after 34.7 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jul after 34.0 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Aug after 31.2 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jul 2020
After · 29 Jul 2020

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 23 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
202122232425
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 · 2Every 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 Abrantes fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 22 July 2020 and 22 July 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 22 July 2020 at 13:27 and declared extinguished on 22 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 212 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Fontes (137 ha, 4.8 %); Carvalhal (75 ha, 4.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.5 km of Fontes. 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 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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.

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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.

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.