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Cinfães fire, 8 August 2016 Cinfães, Nespereira, São Cristóvão de Nogueira

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2016, 02:19 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Cinfães, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,737 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Cinfães since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 20 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
1,737ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
8 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
8 Aug
2016
Heat detections
150
in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
64km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cinfães 3,080 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the town where it started
    576 ha reached on 8 Aug
    23 %
  2. Nespereira 1,695 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town
    452 ha reached on 9 Aug
    13 %
  3. São Cristóvão de Nogueira 1,639 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the town
    406 ha reached on 9 Aug
    22 %
  4. Santiago de Piães 1,607 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town
    182 ha reached on 9 Aug
    10 %
  5. Tendais 697 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the town
    122 ha reached on 9 Aug
    3.8 %

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

  • Other natural land63 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland33 %
  • Agricultural areas2.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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, 5 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 734 ha (the satellite measured 1,737 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
6 Aug 29.4 °C 18 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Aug 31.9 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 32.5 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Aug 27.5 °C 31 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug 24.6 °C 27 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 25.5 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug after 27.5 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Aug after 27.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug after 26.6 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
15 Aug after 24.8 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Aug after 22.0 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Aug after 20.5 °C 60 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 13
18 Aug after 22.8 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Aug after 19.3 °C 67 % 39 km/h 2.3 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2016
After · 18 Aug 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 150Every 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 Cinfães fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,737 hectares (17.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Cinfães (576 ha, 23 %); Nespereira (452 ha, 13 %); São Cristóvão de Nogueira (406 ha, 22 %); Santiago de Piães (182 ha, 10 %); Tendais (122 ha, 3.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.8 km of Nespereira. 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 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

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
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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.