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Arouca fire, February 2023 Rossas, Roge, Chave

Out · last measured on 12 Feb 2023

The fire started on 12 February 2023 in Rossas, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 109 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 11 February 2023 at 23:20 and declared extinguished on 12 February 2023.

Number 36 in Portugal in 2023, of 38.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
109ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
12 Feb 2023 – 12 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
12 Feb
2023
Danger at start
4
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

11°high
41km/h · peak gust
44%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 20 Feb.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 109 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Rossas 1,491 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town where it started
    83 ha
    7.4 %
  2. Roge 1,540 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town
    23 ha
    1.3 %
  3. Chave 1,270 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the town
    3 ha
    0.3 %
  4. Urrô 900 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town
    0 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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland59 %
  • Other natural land41 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 11 February 2023 and burned 116 ha (the satellite measured 109 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)
12 Feb 11.1 °C 44 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
13 Feb after 13.7 °C 43 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 4
14 Feb after 13.7 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
15 Feb after 14.8 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
16 Feb after 15.2 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 5
17 Feb after 15.2 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
18 Feb after 13.4 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
19 Feb after 14.7 °C 49 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
20 Feb after 14.3 °C 49 % 30 km/h 4.1 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Feb 2023
After · 19 Feb 2023

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 13 February 2023 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
PM1041 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
101112131415
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 Arouca fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 February 2023 and 12 February 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 11 February 2023 at 23:20 and declared extinguished on 12 February 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 109 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Rossas (83 ha, 7.4 %); Roge (23 ha, 1.3 %); Chave (3 ha, 0.3 %); Urrô (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.4 km of Rossas. 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 11.1 °C, humidity dropped to 44 % and gusts hit 41 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

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.

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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.

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.