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Chaves fire, September 2024 Águas Frias, Faiões, Planalto de Monforte (União das Freguesias de Oucidres e Bobadela)

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2024, 02:18 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2024 in Águas Frias, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,324 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 September 2024 at 15:02 and declared extinguished on 19 September 2024.

It is the 4th largest in Chaves since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 16 in Portugal in 2024, of 69.

Burnt area
1,324ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
16 Sept 2024 – 19 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
16 Sept
2024
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 636 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

19 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2024 · 4,284 MW · 98 18 Sept 2024 · 101 MW · 22 19 Sept 2024 · 1 MW · 1
17 Sept 18 Sept 19 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
52km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Águas Frias 607 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town where it started
    697 ha reached on 17 Sept
    24 %
  2. Faiões 831 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    310 ha reached on 17 Sept
    38 %
  3. Planalto de Monforte (União das Freguesias de Oucidres e Bobadela) 260 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    200 ha reached on 17 Sept
    10 %
  4. Santo Estêvão 0.8 km from the town
    98 ha reached on 17 Sept
    12 %
  5. União das freguesias das Eiras, São Julião de Montenegro e Cela
    20 ha reached on 18 Sept
    0.9 %

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

  • Agricultural areas43 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland24 %
  • Broadleaved forest17 %
  • Coniferous forest6.3 %
  • Mixed forest4.8 %
  • Other natural land3.0 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.8 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 16 September 2024 and burned 1,262 ha (the satellite measured 1,324 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.

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)
16 Sept 29.0 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Sept 24.1 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Sept 25.0 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Sept 24.6 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.5 mm High 35
20 Sept after 21.2 °C 52 % 34 km/h 4.7 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2024
After · 26 Sept 2024

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 20 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 109 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 47: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak109 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM10129 µg/m³
Optical depth2.42
141516171819202122
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 · 121Every 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 Chaves fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2024 and 19 September 2024: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 September 2024 at 15:02 and declared extinguished on 19 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,324 hectares (13.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Águas Frias (697 ha, 24 %); Faiões (310 ha, 38 %); Planalto de Monforte (União das Freguesias de Oucidres e Bobadela) (200 ha, 10 %); Santo Estêvão (98 ha, 12 %); União das freguesias das Eiras, São Julião de Montenegro e Cela (20 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Águas Frias. 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 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.