Skip to content
worldfires
PT · Portugal · →

Águeda fire, 5 September 2019 Albergaria-a-Velha e Valmaior, São João de Loure e Frossos, Alquerubim

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2019, 03:40 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2019 in São João de Loure e Frossos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,898 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 5 September 2019 at 09:45 and declared extinguished on 5 September 2019.

Number 2 in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

Burnt area
1,898ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
5 Sept 2019 – 7 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
5 Sept
2019
Heat detections
123
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

567

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
68km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Albergaria-a-Velha e Valmaior 11,060 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town
    851 ha reached on 5 Sept
    18 %
  2. São João de Loure e Frossos 2,753 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town where it started
    428 ha reached on 2 Sept
    24 %
  3. Alquerubim 2,233 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town
    237 ha reached on 5 Sept
    16 %
  4. Macinhata do Vouga 3,210 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    209 ha reached on 5 Sept
    6.5 %
  5. Angeja 1,875 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    175 ha reached on 6 Sept
    8.2 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest47 %
  • Mixed forest28 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland13 %
  • Agricultural areas10 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 34 %

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.

Official record

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,707 ha (the satellite measured 1,898 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)
2 Sept 32.3 °C 36 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Sept 34.1 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Sept 28.7 °C 45 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Sept 33.2 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Sept 30.1 °C 24 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Sept 30.9 °C 25 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Sept after 30.2 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Sept after 22.0 °C 60 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Sept after 22.7 °C 39 % 68 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Sept after 29.0 °C 29 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Sept after 31.9 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Sept after 34.5 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Sept after 31.0 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Sept after 29.4 °C 40 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
16 Sept after 26.9 °C 50 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
17 Sept after 24.6 °C 60 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
18 Sept after 23.6 °C 64 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
19 Sept after 22.4 °C 65 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
20 Sept after 23.2 °C 60 % 29 km/h 1.1 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2019
After · 14 Sept 2019

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 2 September 2019 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1036 µg/m³
3112345678910111213
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 · 123Every 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 Águeda fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 September 2019 and 7 September 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 5 September 2019 at 09:45 and declared extinguished on 5 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,898 hectares (19.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Albergaria-a-Velha e Valmaior (851 ha, 18 %); São João de Loure e Frossos (428 ha, 24 %); Alquerubim (237 ha, 16 %); Macinhata do Vouga (209 ha, 6.5 %); Angeja (175 ha, 8.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of Angeja. 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 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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.