Ardãos e Bobadela fire, August 2026 Ardãos e Bobadela, Soutelo e Seara Velha, Sarraquinhos
The fire started on 16 August 2026 in Ardãos e Bobadela, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,971 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 August 2026 at 04:04 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2026.
Number 6 in Portugal in 2026, of 87.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,971ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 5days
- 16 Aug 2026 – 20 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 6
- freguesias
- Started on
- 16 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 73
- in a single hotspot: 165 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 799MW
- 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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 23.6 mm on 24 Aug.
This area had burned before
38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 417 ha in 2017, 120 ha in 2020, 64 ha in 2021, 96 ha in 2022, 63 ha in 2024.
- 417 ha Boticas fire, August 2017 447 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 120 ha Montalegre fire, October 2020 144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 63 ha Sarraquinhos fire, September 2024 217 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
-
740 ha reached on 16 Aug20 %
-
Soutelo e Seara Velha 461 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the centre496 ha reached on 20 Aug28 %
-
Sarraquinhos 300 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre323 ha reached on 16 Aug9.6 %
-
Calvão e Soutelinho da Raia 431 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the centre282 ha reached on 17 Aug10.0 %
-
Vilar de Perdizes e Meixide 463 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre114 ha reached on 16 Aug3.0 %
-
Santa Cruz/Trindade e Sanjurge 3,381 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre19 ha1.4 %
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 land72 %
- Agricultural areas16 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
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 0.66 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 16 August 2026 and burned 1,977 ha (the satellite measured 1,971 ha).
- Boticas Ardãos 16 August 2026 · 04:04 1,977 ha · extinguished on 19 August 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Aug | 31.4 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Aug | 33.4 °C | 27 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 18 Aug | 35.1 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Aug | 31.0 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 29 |
| 20 Aug | 24.3 °C | 59 % | 38 km/h | 4.3 mm | Low 6 |
| 21 Aug after | 24.8 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 22 Aug after | 27.3 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 23 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 24 Aug after | 18.5 °C | 82 % | 60 km/h | 23.6 mm | Very low 0 |
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 19 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily 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 · 73Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,493 haVilarelho Da RaiaAugust 2025 · 2 days · 10 km away
- 3,127 haChaves BusteloJuly 2022 · 5 days · 11 km away
- 24,471 haMonterreiAugust 2025 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 13,065 haValpaços ErvõesJuly 2026 · 6 days · 33 km away
- 7,641 haMurça TresminasJuly 2022 · 5 days · 36 km away
- 3,240 haMuíñosOctober 2017 · 2 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ardãos e Bobadela fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (16 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 20 August 2026 (5 days from 16 August 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 16 August 2026 at 04:04 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,971 hectares (19.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 6 municipalities: Ardãos e Bobadela (740 ha, 20 %); Soutelo e Seara Velha (496 ha, 28 %); Sarraquinhos (323 ha, 9.6 %); Calvão e Soutelinho da Raia (282 ha, 10.0 %); Vilar de Perdizes e Meixide (114 ha, 3.0 %); Santa Cruz/Trindade e Sanjurge (19 ha, 1.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.8 km of the centre of Calvão e Soutelinho da Raia, 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 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.
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. 73 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 1,977 official ha against 1,971 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.