Cervos fire, March 2026 Cervos, Sapiãos
The fire started on 23 March 2026 in Cervos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 229 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
This entry is most likely a pasture burn or a prescribed winter burn in northern Portugal, not a wildfire. In these hills scrub is burnt to renew grazing, and this fire is not in the ICNF register of rural fires. This is our assumption, based on the time of year and the lack of an official record; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 229ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 14days
- 23 Mar 2026 – 5 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 23 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 37MW
- 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 2 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
-
225 ha reached on 24 Mar6.8 %
-
Sapiãos 397 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre4 ha0.2 %
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 land97 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland2.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Mar | 15.2 °C | 39 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 24 Mar | 16.7 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 25 Mar | 15.5 °C | 50 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 26 Mar | 14.5 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 27 Mar | 15.2 °C | 45 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 28 Mar | 15.4 °C | 39 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 29 Mar | 12.8 °C | 37 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 30 Mar | 16.2 °C | 42 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 31 Mar | 19.0 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 1 Apr | 17.7 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 2 Apr | 15.7 °C | 41 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
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 25 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 14 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 · 17Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,493 haVilarelho Da RaiaAugust 2025 · 2 days · 17 km away
- 3,127 haChaves BusteloJuly 2022 · 5 days · 18 km away
- 24,471 haMonterreiAugust 2025 · 8 days · 26 km away
- 2,869 haRibeira de Pena AlvãoSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 3,240 haMuíñosOctober 2017 · 2 days · 32 km away
- 7,641 haMurça TresminasJuly 2022 · 5 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cervos fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (23 March 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 5 April 2026 (14 days from 23 March 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 229 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Cervos (225 ha, 6.8 %); Sapiãos (4 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Cervos and came within 1.4 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 15.2 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, class Very low.
- 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 ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
Satellite cross-check
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.
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.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 17 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
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.