Cascais fire, October 2018 Alcabideche, União das freguesias de Cascais e Estoril
The fire started on 7 October 2018 in Alcabideche, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 606 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 4 in Portugal in 2018, of 23.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 606ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 7 Oct 2018 – 8 Oct 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 7 Oct
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 74
- in a single hotspot: 219 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.4GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.6 mm on 11 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
532 ha reached on 7 Oct13 %
-
75 ha reached on 7 Oct2.6 %
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 land71 %
- Agricultural areas16 %
- Artificial surfaces12 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland2.3 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Cabo Raso PTZPE0061
- LIC Sintra / Cascais PTCON0008
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 6 October 2018 and burned 424 ha (the satellite measured 606 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Cascais Alcabideche 6 October 2018 · 22:50 424 ha · extinguished on 7 October 2018 · cause: unknown
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Oct | 20.1 °C | 44 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Oct | 22.9 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 9 Oct after | 23.2 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Oct after | 20.3 °C | 69 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 11 Oct after | 21.0 °C | 64 % | 44 km/h | 5.6 mm | Very low 4 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 6 October 2018 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 74Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 232 haCascais AlcabidecheJuly 2023 · 1 day · 3 km away
- 287 haMafra Venda do Pinheiro e Santo Estêvão das GalésJuly 2022 · 1 day · 26 km away
- 835 haSeixal AmoraSeptember 2024 · 2 days · 35 km away
- 105 haSobral de Monte Agraco Santo QuintinoSeptember 2019 · 2 days · 37 km away
- 281 haSesimbra CasteloAugust 2017 · 2 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cascais fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 October 2018 and 8 October 2018: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 606 hectares (6.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Alcabideche (532 ha, 13 %); União das freguesias de Cascais e Estoril (75 ha, 2.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.7 km of Alcabideche. 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 22.9 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 74 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 424 official ha against 606 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.