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Almodôvar fire, September 2018 Santa Cruz, Ameixial, Uni3O Das Freguesias De Almodgvar E Grapa Dos P

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2018, 14:18 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2018 in Santa Cruz, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,068 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 1 September 2018 at 11:40 and declared extinguished on 1 September 2018.

Number 2 in Portugal in 2018, of 23.

Burnt area
1,068ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
1 Sept 2018 – 1 Sept 2018
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
1 Sept
2018
Heat detections
70
in a single hotspot: 178 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept1 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1

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
45km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 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. Santa Cruz 483 inhabitants · 9.4 km from the town where it started
    1,027 ha reached on 1 Sept
    8.3 %
  2. Ameixial 381 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the town
    40 ha reached on 1 Sept
    0.3 %
  3. Uni3O Das Freguesias De Almodgvar E Grapa Dos P 380 inhabitants · 14.6 km from the town
    2 ha
    0.0 %

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 forest48 %
  • Agricultural areas32 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland13 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub6.8 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 1 September 2018 and burned 989 ha (the satellite measured 1,068 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)
1 Sept 31.4 °C 35 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept after 29.9 °C 47 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Sept after 26.1 °C 47 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Sept after 24.4 °C 46 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Sept after 26.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Sept after 26.2 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Sept after 24.2 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Sept after 23.4 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
9 Sept after 25.6 °C 41 % 33 km/h 0.9 mm High 22
10 Sept after 31.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Sept after 30.2 °C 34 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2018
After · 8 Sept 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 2 September 2018 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1053 µg/m³
30311234
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 · 70Every 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 Almodôvar fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 September 2018 and 1 September 2018: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 1 September 2018 at 11:40 and declared extinguished on 1 September 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,068 hectares (10.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Santa Cruz (1,027 ha, 8.3 %); Ameixial (40 ha, 0.3 %); Uni3O Das Freguesias De Almodgvar E Grapa Dos P (2 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.9 km of Ameixial. 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 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

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.