Alijó fire, July 2026 Vila Verde, Pópulo e Ribalonga, Vilar de Maçada
The fire started on 22 July 2026 in Vilar de Maçada, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,144 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 22 July 2026 at 13:35 and declared extinguished on 23 July 2026.
It is the 3th largest in Alijó since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 9 in Portugal in 2026, of 78.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,144ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 2days
- 22 Jul 2026 – 23 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- freguesias
- Started on
- 22 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 24
- in a single hotspot: 35 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 132MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
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
It had gone 14 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: 142 ha in 2016, 290 ha in 2017, 115 ha in 2019, 150 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 609 ha that had burned before.
- 150 ha Alijó fire, September 2024 478 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 142 ha Alijó fire, October 2016 205 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 115 ha Alijó fire, July 2019 685 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 109 ha Pópulo e Ribalonga fire, April 2017 130 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 99 ha Alijó fire, June 2017 106 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Vila Verde 1.8 km from the centre538 ha reached on 23 Jul13 %
-
Pópulo e Ribalonga 409 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the centre358 ha reached on 23 Jul17 %
-
248 ha reached on 22 Jul12 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, 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 land65 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland27 %
- Agricultural areas7.5 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.49 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Official record
According to ICNF, this fire started on 22 July 2026 and burned 1,129 ha (the satellite measured 1,144 ha).
- Alijó Vilar de Maçada 22 July 2026 · 13:35 1,129 ha · extinguished on 23 July 2026 · cause: negligence
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 | 35.0 °C | 10 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 23 Jul | 32.0 °C | 19 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Jul after | 25.5 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Jul after | 27.9 °C | 25 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 26 Jul after | 31.6 °C | 16 % | 11 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Jul after | 35.2 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Jul after | 37.2 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Jul after | 34.5 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 30 Jul after | 30.8 °C | 27 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 Jul after | 31.5 °C | 27 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Aug after | 33.8 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 23 % | 45 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.
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 · CopernicusOn 25 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 24Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,597 haAlijó Vila ChãJuly 2017 · 3 days · 9 km away
- 7,641 haMurça TresminasJuly 2022 · 5 days · 15 km away
- 6,118 haVila Pouca de Aguiar Telões17 September 2024 · 3 days · 16 km away
- 5,850 haVila Real Adoufe e Vilarinho de Samardã21 August 2022 · 6 days · 16 km away
- 6,087 haVila Real Vila Marim3 August 2025 · 13 days · 22 km away
- 5,163 haMirandela FrechasAugust 2025 · 3 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Alijó fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (22 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 23 July 2026 (2 days from 22 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate. According to ICNF, it was detected on 22 July 2026 at 13:35 and declared extinguished on 23 July 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,144 hectares (11.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Vila Verde (538 ha, 13 %); Pópulo e Ribalonga (358 ha, 17 %); Vilar de Maçada (248 ha, 12 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.8 km of the centre of Pópulo e Ribalonga, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 24 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 1,129 official ha against 1,144 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.