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PT · Portugal · –

Cervos fire, November 2026 Sarraquinhos, Chã, Cervos

Out · last detection 6 Nov 2026, 12:46 UTC

Satellites first detected fire on 2 November 2026 in Cervos, Portugal. It was active for 5 days, with 20 heat detections and an area with fire of about 238 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 5 freguesias.

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.

Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.

Area with fire
≈ 238ha
rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
Duration
5days
2 Nov 2026 – 6 Nov 2026
Freguesias hit
5
freguesias
Started on
2 Nov
2026
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
21
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
48MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Nov6 Nov
6 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

2 Nov 2026 · 60 MW · 2 3 Nov 2026 · 4 MW · 1 5 Nov 2026 · 67 MW · 4 6 Nov 2026 · 62 MW · 12
2 Nov 3 Nov 5 Nov 6 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

16°high
38km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 7 Nov.

What happened to each freguesia

  1. Sarraquinhos 300 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the centre
    126 ha reached on 2 Nov
    3.8 %
  2. Chã 701 inhabitants · 7.6 km from the centre
    42 ha reached on 6 Nov
    0.8 %
  3. Cervos 227 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre where it started
    28 ha reached on 2 Nov
    0.8 %
  4. Meixedo e Padornelos 265 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre
    28 ha reached on 6 Nov
    0.8 %
  5. Calvão e Soutelinho da Raia 431 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the centre
    14 ha reached on 5 Nov
    0.5 %

Area with fire inside each freguesia, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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.

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
2 Nov 16.5 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
3 Nov 11.4 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
4 Nov 9.4 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
5 Nov 10.9 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
6 Nov 11.2 °C 47 % 22 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 12
7 Nov after 11.5 °C 88 % 13 km/h 3.5 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 20.8, a minimum humidity of 26% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 38.

FWI at the start 20.8
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Vilariño de Conso fire, July 2022
7,090 ha 10 days FWI 22.4 Min. humidity 26 % 52 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.6 mm on 3 Aug.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
280 ha
median area
18 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 31 of 38 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (238 ha against a median of 280 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 2 days.

In 7 of 38, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.2 mm.

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

3.5 mmfirst rain
7 Novthe day after it ended
38km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 6 Nov, and on 7 Nov 3.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 31 of 38, with a median of 4.2 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

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 · 26 Oct 2026
After · 11 Nov 2026

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 4 November 2026 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1029 µg/m³
Optical depth0.12
30 Oct1 Nov3 Nov5 Nov
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 · 20Every 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 Cervos fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 2 November 2026 to 6 November 2026 (5 days between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
How much area did it burn?
There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 238 hectares with fire (2.4 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
Which freguesias burned?
The fire entered 5 freguesias: Sarraquinhos (126 ha, 3.8 %); Chã (42 ha, 0.8 %); Cervos (28 ha, 0.8 %); Meixedo e Padornelos (28 ha, 0.8 %); Calvão e Soutelinho da Raia (14 ha, 0.5 %).
Is the Cervos fire still active?
No fire detections since 6 Nov 2026, 12:46 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.7 km of the centre of Sarraquinhos, 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 16.5 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 21, class Moderate.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 38. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 280 ha; 18 % went past 1,000 ha. In 7 of 38, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 4.2 mm.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 7 November 2026.
  1. Page published (≈ 252 ha).

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
  • No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 238 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
  • Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. 20 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
  • Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

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.