How long did the Aldeia Nova fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 2 October 2018 and 3 October 2018: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 981 hectares (9.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Aldeia Nova (628 ha, 23 %); Forno Telheiro (188 ha, 9.1 %); Sobral Pichorro e Fuinhas (100 ha, 6.7 %); Fiães (65 ha, 6.7 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Aldeia Nova. 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 26.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2018-10-02 → 2018-10-03

Aldeia Nova fire, October 2018 Aldeia Nova, Forno Telheiro, Sobral Pichorro e Fuinhas

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2018, 01:15 UTC

The fire started on 2 October 2018 in Aldeia Nova, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 981 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 3 in Portugal in 2018, of 23.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.0 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: 981ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 2 Oct 2018 – 3 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit: 4; freguesias
Started on: 2 Oct; 2018
Heat detections: 31; in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 108MW; sum of detected power

Play back 3 Oct 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Oct3 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

26°high

50km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 11 Oct.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 432 ha in 2016.

432 ha Trancoso fire, August 2016 1,564 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Aldeia Nova 276 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town where it started

628 ha reached on 2 Oct

23 %
Forno Telheiro 597 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town

188 ha reached on 2 Oct

9.1 %
Sobral Pichorro e Fuinhas 227 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town

100 ha reached on 2 Oct

6.7 %
Fiães 181 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town

65 ha reached on 2 Oct

6.7 %

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 land62 %
Scrub and transitional woodland29 %
Agricultural areas8.3 %

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)
2 Oct	24.2 °C	16 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
3 Oct	26.0 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Oct after	27.6 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Oct after	26.6 °C	18 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
6 Oct after	24.4 °C	29 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
7 Oct after	19.1 °C	28 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
8 Oct after	21.2 °C	31 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
9 Oct after	20.8 °C	32 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Oct after	21.4 °C	36 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Oct after	18.2 °C	61 %	49 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Sept 2018

After · 10 Oct 2018

Before After

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 30 September 2018 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1023 µg/m³

30123456

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 · 31Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aldeia Nova fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 2 October 2018 and 3 October 2018: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 981 hectares (9.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Aldeia Nova (628 ha, 23 %); Forno Telheiro (188 ha, 9.1 %); Sobral Pichorro e Fuinhas (100 ha, 6.7 %); Fiães (65 ha, 6.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Aldeia Nova. 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 26.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned