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Alturas do Barroso e Cerdedo fire, March 2026 Alturas do Barroso e Cerdedo, Dornelas

Out · last measured on 6 Apr 2026

The fire started on 24 March 2026 in Alturas do Barroso e Cerdedo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 157 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 61 in Portugal in 2026, of 87.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Boticas · 2017Vila Pouca de Aguiar · 2024Vila Real · 2022Vila Real · 2025

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area
157ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
14days
24 Mar 2026 – 6 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
24 Mar
2026
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

17°high
22km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 157 ha in 2017, 36 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 157 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Alturas do Barroso e Cerdedo 389 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    116 ha
    2.0 %
  2. Dornelas 3.4 km from the centre
    40 ha
    1.1 %

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 land75 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland17 %
  • Agricultural areas7.8 %

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

Official record

Several official records match this area

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 113 ha (the satellite measured 157 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 72 ha 2 41 ha
26 Mar3 Apr
negligence
  1. 1 Montalegre Viade de Baixo 26 March 2026 · 16:03 72 ha · extinguished on 26 March 2026 · cause: negligence
  2. 2 Boticas Alturas do Barroso 2 April 2026 · 14:45 41 ha · extinguished on 2 April 2026 · cause: negligence

Total according to ICNF: 113 ha, 72 % of the 157 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
24 Mar 16.6 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
25 Mar 15.4 °C 50 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
26 Mar 14.4 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
27 Mar 15.1 °C 45 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
28 Mar 15.3 °C 39 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
29 Mar 12.7 °C 37 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
30 Mar 16.1 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
31 Mar 18.9 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
1 Apr 17.6 °C 36 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
2 Apr 15.6 °C 41 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
3 Apr 18.6 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Mar 2026
After · 13 Apr 2026

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 22 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
Optical depth0.24
222324252627
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Alturas do Barroso e Cerdedo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 March 2026 to 6 April 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 March 2026 to 24 March 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 157 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Alturas do Barroso e Cerdedo (116 ha, 2.0 %); Dornelas (40 ha, 1.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Alturas do Barroso e Cerdedo and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 16.6 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.
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 ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Matched to the official record from ICNF.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 March 2026 to 24 March 2026. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 113 official ha against 157 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • 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. 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.