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Arouca fire, August 2026 Cabreiros e Albergaria da Serra, Covelo de Paivó e Janarde, Moldes

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2026, 13:46 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2026 in Cabreiros e Albergaria da Serra, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,489 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 17 August 2026 at 21:50 and declared extinguished on 20 August 2026.

Number 7 in Portugal in 2026, of 78.

Burnt area
1,489ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
18 Aug 2026 – 18 Aug 2026
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
18 Aug
2026
Heat detections
98
in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1819

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
31km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.0 mm on 23 Aug.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,490 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Cabreiros e Albergaria da Serra 185 inhabitants · 6.6 km from the town where it started
    822 ha reached on 18 Aug
    26 %
  2. Covelo de Paivó e Janarde 171 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town
    395 ha reached on 18 Aug
    8.9 %
  3. Moldes 1,126 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the town
    261 ha reached on 18 Aug
    9.2 %
  4. Carvalhais e Candal 1,413 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the town
    13 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.3 %

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

  • Other natural land55 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland45 %

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 17 August 2026 and burned 1,468 ha (the satellite measured 1,489 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)
18 Aug 37.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Aug after 28.7 °C 52 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
20 Aug after 25.1 °C 56 % 37 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
21 Aug after 26.0 °C 41 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
22 Aug after 27.4 °C 38 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Aug after 27.1 °C 43 % 50 km/h 10.0 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2026
After · 25 Aug 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 21 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 684 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 274: 18 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak684 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10773 µg/m³
Optical depth1.65
1617181920212223
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 · 98Every 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 Arouca fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2026 and 18 August 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 17 August 2026 at 21:50 and declared extinguished on 20 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,489 hectares (14.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Cabreiros e Albergaria da Serra (822 ha, 26 %); Covelo de Paivó e Janarde (395 ha, 8.9 %); Moldes (261 ha, 9.2 %); Carvalhais e Candal (13 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.0 km of Covelo de Paivó e Janarde. 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 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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
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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.