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Chaves fire, September 2025 Águas Frias, Santo António de Monforte, Paradela

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2025, 03:04 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2025 in Águas Frias, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 580 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 8 September 2025 at 13:20 and declared extinguished on 9 September 2025.

It is the 6th largest in Chaves since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 38 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Burnt area
580ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
8 Sept 2025 – 9 Sept 2025
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
8 Sept
2025
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
262MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

9 Sept 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept9 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

8 Sept 2025 · 521 MW · 6 9 Sept 2025 · 4 MW · 2
8 Sept 9 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

22°high
39km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 10 Sept.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 121 ha in 2017, 48 ha in 2020, 15 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 151 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Águas Frias 607 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town where it started
    376 ha reached on 8 Sept
    13 %
  2. Santo António de Monforte 397 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town
    113 ha reached on 8 Sept
    9.4 %
  3. Paradela 1.1 km from the town
    92 ha reached on 8 Sept
    11 %

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 woodland51 %
  • Agricultural areas35 %
  • Broadleaved forest13 %
  • Other land cover0.5 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 8 September 2025 and burned 552 ha (the satellite measured 580 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)
8 Sept 22.0 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
9 Sept 21.5 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Sept after 22.6 °C 55 % 41 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 14

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2025
After · 16 Sept 2025

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 10 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1016 µg/m³
Optical depth0.18
6789101112
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 · 8Every 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 8 September 2025 and 9 September 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 8 September 2025 at 13:20 and declared extinguished on 9 September 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 580 hectares (5.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Águas Frias (376 ha, 13 %); Santo António de Monforte (113 ha, 9.4 %); Paradela (92 ha, 11 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 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 22.0 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class 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

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.

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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.