How long did the Braga fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 8 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 348 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Este (São Pedro e São Mamede) (250 ha, 25 %); Sobreposta (65 ha, 11 %); Pedralva (19 ha, 2.4 %); Espinho (13 ha, 3.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Sobreposta and came within 0.5 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 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2016-08-08 → 2016-08-08

Braga fire, August 2016 Este (São Pedro e São Mamede), Sobreposta, Pedralva

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2016, 13:17 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Sobreposta, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 348 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 77 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ponte da Barca · 2025 Celorico de Basto · 2024 Arcos de Valdevez · 2016 Cabração e Moreira do Lima · 2016

Burnt area: 348ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 8 Aug 2016 – 8 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 4; freguesias
Started on: 8 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 7; in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start: 49; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 75MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 2016 · 75 MW · 7

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

36km/h · peak gust

22%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Este (São Pedro e São Mamede) 4,067 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre

250 ha reached on 8 Aug

25 %
Sobreposta 1,267 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the centre where it started

65 ha reached on 8 Aug

11 %
Pedralva 1,060 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre

19 ha

2.4 %
Espinho 0.7 km from the centre

13 ha

3.0 %

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 woodland84 %
Other natural land7.5 %
Artificial surfaces4.3 %
Mixed forest2.3 %
Broadleaved forest1.4 %

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

Official record

Several official records match this area

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 264 ha (the satellite measured 348 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 9 ha 2 238 ha 3 17 ha

6 Aug9 Aug

arson

1 Póvoa de Lanhoso Covelas 6 August 2016 · 16:24 9 ha · extinguished on 6 August 2016 · cause: arson
2 Braga São Mamede Este 7 August 2016 · 16:56 238 ha · extinguished on 8 August 2016 · cause: arson
3 Braga Sobreposta 8 August 2016 · 16:01 17 ha · extinguished on 9 August 2016 · cause: arson

Total according to ICNF: 264 ha, 76 % of the 348 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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	36.6 °C	22 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
9 Aug after	30.2 °C	33 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Aug after	29.1 °C	22 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
11 Aug after	29.4 °C	18 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
12 Aug after	31.0 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
13 Aug after	29.7 °C	24 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Aug after	27.6 °C	42 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
15 Aug after	26.0 °C	47 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
16 Aug after	23.0 °C	47 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
17 Aug after	22.9 °C	63 %	32 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 15
18 Aug after	24.6 °C	40 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2016

After · 15 Aug 2016

Before After

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 9 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak36 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1074 µg/m³

WHO 15

67891011

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 · 7Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Braga fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 8 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 348 hectares (3.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Este (São Pedro e São Mamede) (250 ha, 25 %); Sobreposta (65 ha, 11 %); Pedralva (19 ha, 2.4 %); Espinho (13 ha, 3.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Sobreposta and came within 0.5 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 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 264 official ha against 348 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

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.

Where it burned