How long did the Castro Daire fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 19 September 2025 and 22 September 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 19 September 2025 at 11:05 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2025.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,067 hectares (20.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 7 municipalities: Lazarim (1,256 ha, 76 %); Lalim (312 ha, 43 %); Várzea da Serra (222 ha, 10 %); União das Freguesias de Tarouca e Dálvares (120 ha, 5.5 %); União das freguesias de Mezio e Moura Morta (117 ha, 5.2 %); Cepões, Meijinhos e Melcões (41 ha, 3.8 %); Bigorne, Magueija e Pretarouca (1 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Lazarim and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 2025-09-19 → 2025-09-22

Castro Daire fire, September 2025 Lazarim, Lalim, Várzea da Serra

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2025, 02:59 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2025 in Lazarim, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,067 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 7 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 19 September 2025 at 11:05 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2025.

Number 17 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tarouca · 2021 Lamego · 2017 Trancoso · 2025 Castro Daire · 2024

Burnt area: 2,067ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 19 Sept 2025 – 22 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit: 7; freguesias
Started on: 19 Sept; 2025
Heat detections: 69; in a single hotspot: 175 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 2.1GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept22 Sept

Play back 20 Sept 2025

How it evolved, day by day

19 Sept 20 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

29°high

49km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 109 ha in 2017, 14 ha in 2020, 155 ha in 2021, 38 ha in 2022, 29 ha in 2023.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (21 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 town

Lazarim 407 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started

1,256 ha reached on 19 Sept

76 %
Lalim 659 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

312 ha

43 %
Várzea da Serra 207 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre

222 ha reached on 19 Sept

10 %
União das Freguesias de Tarouca e Dálvares 689 inhabitants · 4.2 km from the centre

120 ha

5.5 %
União das freguesias de Mezio e Moura Morta

117 ha reached on 19 Sept

5.2 %
Cepões, Meijinhos e Melcões 970 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the centre

41 ha

3.8 %
Bigorne, Magueija e Pretarouca 575 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre

1 ha reached on 20 Sept

0.1 %

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

Other natural land63 %
Agricultural areas21 %
Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
Coniferous forest5.1 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 55 %

LIC Serra de Montemuro PTCON0025

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 19 September 2025 and burned 2,070 ha (the satellite measured 2,067 ha).

Castro Daire Mezio 19 September 2025 · 11:05 2,070 ha · extinguished on 20 September 2025 · cause: negligence

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)
19 Sept	29.0 °C	27 %	48 km/h	0.6 mm	Very high 38
20 Sept	21.6 °C	38 %	35 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 17
21 Sept	16.1 °C	39 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
22 Sept	17.6 °C	28 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
23 Sept after	18.6 °C	33 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
24 Sept after	19.0 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
25 Sept after	21.7 °C	27 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
26 Sept after	22.9 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
27 Sept after	20.0 °C	27 %	64 km/h	4.4 mm	Very low 5

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Sept 2025

After · 29 Sept 2025

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 22 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 82 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak82 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM10130 µg/m³

Optical depth0.45

WHO 15

171819202122232425

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 · 69Every 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 Castro Daire fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 19 September 2025 and 22 September 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 19 September 2025 at 11:05 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,067 hectares (20.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 7 municipalities: Lazarim (1,256 ha, 76 %); Lalim (312 ha, 43 %); Várzea da Serra (222 ha, 10 %); União das Freguesias de Tarouca e Dálvares (120 ha, 5.5 %); União das freguesias de Mezio e Moura Morta (117 ha, 5.2 %); Cepões, Meijinhos e Melcões (41 ha, 3.8 %); Bigorne, Magueija e Pretarouca (1 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Lazarim and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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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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How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 69 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 2,070 official ha against 2,067 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
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