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Basto fire, March 2021 Refojos de Basto, Basto

Out · last measured on 15 Mar 2021

The fire started on 15 March 2021 in Basto, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 118 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

This entry is most likely a pasture burn or a prescribed winter burn in northern Portugal, not a wildfire. In these hills scrub is burnt to renew grazing, and this fire is not in the ICNF register of rural fires. This is our assumption, based on the time of year and the lack of an official record; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cabeceiras de Basto · 2024Celorico de Basto · 2024Ribeira de Pena · 2016Vila Real · 2025

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
118ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
15 Mar 2021 – 15 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
15 Mar
2021
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

19°high
32km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Refojos de Basto 4,680 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre
    70 ha
    5.8 %
  2. Basto 893 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre where it started
    48 ha
    8.7 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland96 %
  • Mixed forest2.6 %
  • Agricultural areas1.7 %

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

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)
15 Mar 18.8 °C 43 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
16 Mar after 19.2 °C 38 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
17 Mar after 20.9 °C 32 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
18 Mar after 16.6 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
19 Mar after 15.4 °C 50 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
20 Mar after 15.4 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
21 Mar after 16.0 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
22 Mar after 17.3 °C 40 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
23 Mar after 18.8 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
24 Mar after 16.7 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
25 Mar after 17.1 °C 50 % 30 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 · 8 Mar 2021
After · 22 Mar 2021

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 March 2021 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
131415161718
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 Basto fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 15 March 2021 and 15 March 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 118 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Refojos de Basto (70 ha, 5.8 %); Basto (48 ha, 8.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Basto and came within 1.8 km of its centre. 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 18.8 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

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.