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Alandroal fire, June 2019 Alandroal (Nossa Senhora da Conceição), São Brás dos Matos (Mina do Bugalho) e Juromenha (Nossa Senhora do Loreto)

Out · last detection 4 Jun 2019, 01:41 UTC

The fire started on 4 June 2019 in Alandroal (Nossa Senhora da Conceição), São Brás dos Matos (Mina do Bugalho) e Juromenha (Nossa Senhora do Loreto), Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 306 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to ICNF, it was detected on 3 June 2019 at 15:32 and declared extinguished on 4 June 2019.

Number 21 in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

The power measured by the satellite is low (1.5 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
306ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
4 Jun 2019 – 4 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
freguesias
Started on
4 Jun
2019
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 2 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
2MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jun4 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

4

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
48km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 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

  1. Alandroal (Nossa Senhora da Conceição), São Brás dos Matos (Mina do Bugalho) e Juromenha (Nossa Senhora do Loreto) 2,055 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the town where it started
    307 ha reached on 4 Jun
    1.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas59 %
  • Broadleaved forest30 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland11 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 3 June 2019 and burned 341 ha (the satellite measured 306 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)
4 Jun 24.5 °C 42 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Jun after 22.4 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Jun after 22.6 °C 37 % 54 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 39
7 Jun after 22.9 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
8 Jun after 27.0 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jun after 25.4 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jun after 26.7 °C 22 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jun after 25.4 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jun after 27.7 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Jun after 25.7 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Jun after 21.6 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 May 2019
After · 11 Jun 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 3 June 2019 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
PM1017 µg/m³
234567
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 Alandroal fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 4 June 2019 and 4 June 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 3 June 2019 at 15:32 and declared extinguished on 4 June 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 306 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Alandroal (Nossa Senhora da Conceição), São Brás dos Matos (Mina do Bugalho) e Juromenha (Nossa Senhora do Loreto) (307 ha, 1.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.0 km of Alandroal (Nossa Senhora da Conceição), São Brás dos Matos (Mina do Bugalho) e Juromenha (Nossa Senhora do Loreto). 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 24.5 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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.