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PT · Portugal · –

Caldas da Rainha fire, August 2022 Arrouquelas, Rio Maior, Asseiceira

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2022, 02:26 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2022 in Landal, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 618 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 freguesias. According to ICNF, it was detected on 17 August 2022 at 13:45 and declared extinguished on 18 August 2022.

Number 21 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
618ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
17 Aug 2022 – 20 Aug 2022
Freguesias hit
6
freguesias
Started on
17 Aug
2022
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
96MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug20 Aug
18 Aug 2022

How it evolved, day by day

17 Aug 2022 · 176 MW · 3 18 Aug 2022 · 15 MW · 13
17 Aug 18 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
61km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (6.2 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each freguesia

  1. Arrouquelas 634 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre
    236 ha reached on 18 Aug
    8.4 %
  2. Rio Maior 12,517 inhabitants · 5.3 km from the centre
    184 ha reached on 17 Aug
    2.0 %
  3. Asseiceira 2.1 km from the centre
    135 ha reached on 18 Aug
    8.0 %
  4. Alguber 833 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre
    39 ha reached on 18 Aug
    2.0 %
  5. Landal 941 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the centre where it started
    24 ha reached on 17 Aug
    2.4 %
  6. Alcoentre 3,133 inhabitants · 4.3 km from the centre
    1 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each freguesia, 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

  • Broadleaved forest68 %
  • Coniferous forest17 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland14 %
  • Mixed forest1.3 %
  • Agricultural areas1.0 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.48 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.48 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 17 August 2022 and burned 614 ha (the satellite measured 618 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)

Started with Strong wind: 11 % of the area in Portugal

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
17 Aug 23.3 °C 50 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Aug 27.7 °C 35 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Aug 35.2 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Aug 29.6 °C 39 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Aug after 25.4 °C 47 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Aug after 28.0 °C 45 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug after 28.8 °C 49 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Aug after 23.0 °C 67 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
25 Aug after 24.6 °C 64 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Aug after 25.2 °C 61 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
27 Aug after 25.9 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
28 Aug after 26.0 °C 48 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Aug after 25.2 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Aug after 24.7 °C 49 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.3, a minimum humidity of 50% and 44 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 9.

FWI at the start 49.3
Minimum humidity 50 %
Days without rain 44
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mira de Aire fire, August 2017
288 ha 6 days FWI 46.9 Min. humidity 51 % 35 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 8.3 mm on 28 Aug.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 9. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
61km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 20 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2022
After · 27 Aug 2022

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 19 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
Optical depth0.23
15 Aug17 Aug19 Aug21 Aug23 Aug
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 · 16Every 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 Caldas da Rainha fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 August 2022 and 20 August 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 17 August 2022 at 13:45 and declared extinguished on 18 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 618 hectares (6.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which freguesias burned?
The fire entered 6 freguesias: Arrouquelas (236 ha, 8.4 %); Rio Maior (184 ha, 2.0 %); Asseiceira (135 ha, 8.0 %); Alguber (39 ha, 2.0 %); Landal (24 ha, 2.4 %); Alcoentre (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 2.1 km of the centre of Asseiceira, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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.

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. 16 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 614 official ha against 618 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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. Freguesia boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per freguesia is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.