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Cinfães fire, 8 August 2016 Ferreiros de Tendais, Oliveira do Douro, Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2016, 02:56 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Ferreiros de Tendais, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 974 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 35 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
974ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
8 Aug 2016 – 10 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
8 Aug
2016
Heat detections
57
in a single hotspot: 32 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
463MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8910

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
64km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 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. Ferreiros de Tendais 540 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    454 ha reached on 9 Aug
    28 %
  2. Oliveira do Douro 1,257 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town where it started
    354 ha reached on 8 Aug
    25 %
  3. Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires 517 inhabitants · 6.4 km from the town
    163 ha reached on 9 Aug
    4.4 %
  4. Freigil e Miomães 678 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    3 ha reached on 9 Aug
    0.4 %

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 land56 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland27 %
  • Agricultural areas17 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 91 %

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, 4 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,326 ha (the satellite measured 974 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)
8 Aug 34.1 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Aug 30.4 °C 28 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Aug 27.7 °C 22 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Aug after 28.8 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug after 30.1 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Aug after 30.5 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug after 30.2 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
15 Aug after 28.0 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Aug after 24.8 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Aug after 22.8 °C 62 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 14
18 Aug after 26.1 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
19 Aug after 22.2 °C 66 % 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 · 17 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 13 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak53 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1064 µg/m³
678910111213
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 · 57Every 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 10 August 2016: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 974 hectares (9.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Ferreiros de Tendais (454 ha, 28 %); Oliveira do Douro (354 ha, 25 %); Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires (163 ha, 4.4 %); Freigil e Miomães (3 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Oliveira do Douro. 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 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

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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.