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Castelo Branco fire, August 2023 Montes da Senhora, União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira, Santo André das Tojeiras

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2023, 02:07 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2023 in Montes da Senhora, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,679 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 4 August 2023 at 15:09 and declared extinguished on 8 August 2023.

Number 2 in Portugal in 2023, of 38.

Burnt area
6,679ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
5 Aug 2023 – 6 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
5 Aug
2023
Heat detections
244
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

56

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
35km/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

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 66 ha in 2017, 84 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Montes da Senhora 1,641 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town where it started
    2,574 ha reached on 5 Aug
    70 %
  2. União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira
    1,761 ha reached on 5 Aug
    15 %
  3. Santo André das Tojeiras 588 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    1,147 ha reached on 5 Aug
    15 %
  4. Proença a Nova e Peral 4,498 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town
    1,103 ha reached on 5 Aug
    6.4 %
  5. Sarzedas 1,017 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the town
    102 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.6 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland63 %
  • Coniferous forest23 %
  • Agricultural areas11 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.5 %
  • Other natural land1.3 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 4 August 2023 and burned 6,553 ha (the satellite measured 6,679 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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incêndio de Proença-a-Nova · Incêndio de Castelo Branco
Official area reported: 6,553 ha (the satellite measured 6,679 ha)

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
5 Aug 36.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Aug 39.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Aug after 39.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Aug after 39.3 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Aug after 34.7 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Aug after 36.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Aug after 38.6 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Aug after 34.3 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Aug after 33.5 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Aug after 33.7 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Aug after 32.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Aug after 33.1 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jul 2023
After · 13 Aug 2023

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 6 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1065 µg/m³
Optical depth0.71
3456789
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 · 244Every 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 Castelo Branco fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 August 2023 and 6 August 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 4 August 2023 at 15:09 and declared extinguished on 8 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,679 hectares (66.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Montes da Senhora (2,574 ha, 70 %); União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira (1,761 ha, 15 %); Santo André das Tojeiras (1,147 ha, 15 %); Proença a Nova e Peral (1,103 ha, 6.4 %); Sarzedas (102 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.7 km of Montes da Senhora. 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 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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

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
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.

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.