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Barcelos fire, August 2016 Vila Cova e Feitos, Tamel (Santa Leocádia) e Vilar do Monte, Palme

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2016, 14:20 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Vila Cova e Feitos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,004 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 10 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 7 August 2016 at 14:58 and declared extinguished on 9 August 2016.

Number 14 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
2,004ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
8 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
10
freguesias
Started on
8 Aug
2016
Heat detections
134
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
50km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Vila Cova e Feitos 2,449 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    734 ha reached on 8 Aug
    47 %
  2. Tamel (Santa Leocádia) e Vilar do Monte 1,269 inhabitants · 6.8 km from the town where it started
    535 ha reached on 8 Aug
    48 %
  3. Palme 1,045 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town
    495 ha reached on 8 Aug
    60 %
  4. União das Freguesias de Palmeira de Faro e Curvos 2,403 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    138 ha reached on 8 Aug
    12 %
  5. Aldreu 795 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town
    52 ha reached on 8 Aug
    11 %
  6. Creixomil e Mariz 1,112 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town
    34 ha reached on 8 Aug
    4.8 %
  7. Fragoso 2,070 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    8 ha
    0.6 %
  8. Perelhal 1,700 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    7 ha reached on 8 Aug
    1.0 %
  9. Carapeços 2,168 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town
    1 ha
    0.2 %
  10. Vila Chã 1.8 km from the town
    0 ha
    0.1 %

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 woodland91 %
  • Agricultural areas5.6 %
  • Mixed forest2.3 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.2 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 7 August 2016 and burned 1,694 ha (the satellite measured 2,004 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)
8 Aug 32.8 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug 28.8 °C 39 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Aug 29.0 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Aug 28.7 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug after 30.0 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Aug after 26.7 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug after 24.5 °C 51 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
15 Aug after 23.8 °C 52 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
16 Aug after 21.8 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 Aug after 21.2 °C 69 % 36 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 18
18 Aug after 23.5 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Aug after 20.7 °C 66 % 34 km/h 3.9 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2016
After · 18 Aug 2016

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 8 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 214 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak214 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10224 µg/m³
67891011121314
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 · 134Every 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 Barcelos fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 7 August 2016 at 14:58 and declared extinguished on 9 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,004 hectares (20.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 10 municipalities: Vila Cova e Feitos (734 ha, 47 %); Tamel (Santa Leocádia) e Vilar do Monte (535 ha, 48 %); Palme (495 ha, 60 %); União das Freguesias de Palmeira de Faro e Curvos (138 ha, 12 %); Aldreu (52 ha, 11 %); Creixomil e Mariz (34 ha, 4.8 %); Fragoso (8 ha, 0.6 %); Perelhal (7 ha, 1.0 %); Carapeços (1 ha, 0.2 %); Vila Chã (0 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.5 km of Palme. 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 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 50 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
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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.