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PT · Portugal ·

Alfândega da Fé fire, 16 August 2018 Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2018, 14:19 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2018 in Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 164 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single freguesia. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 August 2018 at 14:34 and declared extinguished on 16 August 2018.

Number 15 in Portugal in 2018, of 23.

Burnt area
164ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
16 Aug 2018 – 16 Aug 2018
Freguesias hit
1
freguesias
Started on
16 Aug
2018
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 159 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
383MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

16 Aug 2018 · 383 MW · 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

31°high
37km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 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 freguesia

  1. Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde 266 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre where it started
    164 ha reached on 16 Aug
    3.2 %

Burnt area inside each freguesia, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Other natural land67 %
  • Agricultural areas33 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 16 August 2018 and burned 159 ha (the satellite measured 164 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)
16 Aug 31.4 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Aug after 30.0 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug after 29.0 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Aug after 31.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Aug after 33.1 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Aug after 32.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Aug after 32.6 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
23 Aug after 32.5 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug after 31.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Aug after 29.0 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Aug after 30.3 °C 29 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 34.0, a minimum humidity of 30% and 35 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 21.

FWI at the start 34.0
Minimum humidity 30 %
Days without rain 35
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Valpaços fire, August 2022
505 ha 4 days FWI 33.9 Min. humidity 28 % 39 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.4 mm on 5 Sept.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
403 ha
median area
19 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 13 of 21 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 164 ha against a median of 403 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 8 of 21, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.7 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
37km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 13 of 21, with a median of 1.7 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2018
After · 23 Aug 2018

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 16 August 2018 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
PM1011 µg/m³
14 Aug16 Aug18 Aug
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 · 4Every 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 Alfândega da Fé fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 August 2018 and 16 August 2018: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 August 2018 at 14:34 and declared extinguished on 16 August 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 164 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which freguesias burned?
The fire only entered Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde (164 ha, 3.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde and came within 1.2 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 21. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 403 ha; 19 % went past 1,000 ha. In 8 of 21, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.7 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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
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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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 4 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 159 official ha against 164 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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. Freguesia boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per freguesia is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.