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Cinfães fire, September 2019 São Cristóvão de Nogueira, Santiago de Piães

Out · last detection 8 Sept 2019, 13:04 UTC

The fire started on 8 September 2019 in São Cristóvão de Nogueira, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 152 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 8 September 2019 at 05:20 and declared extinguished on 9 September 2019.

It is the 23th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 35 in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

The power measured by the satellite is low (5.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
152ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
8 Sept 2019 – 8 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
8 Sept
2019
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
6MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Sept8 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

8

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
37km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.2 mm on 16 Sept.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 46 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. São Cristóvão de Nogueira 1,639 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town where it started
    151 ha reached on 8 Sept
    8.4 %
  2. Santiago de Piães 1,607 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town
    1 ha
    0.1 %

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 woodland98 %
  • Agricultural areas2.0 %

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 2019 and burned 168 ha (the satellite measured 152 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 27.3 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Sept after 20.7 °C 56 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
10 Sept after 20.6 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
11 Sept after 25.3 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Sept after 28.4 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
13 Sept after 31.1 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Sept after 27.8 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
15 Sept after 25.6 °C 50 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 18
16 Sept after 22.2 °C 64 % 20 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Sept 2019
After · 15 Sept 2019

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 9 September 2019 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
67891011
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 · 1Every 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 September 2019 and 8 September 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 8 September 2019 at 05:20 and declared extinguished on 9 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 152 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: São Cristóvão de Nogueira (151 ha, 8.4 %); Santiago de Piães (1 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.4 km of Santiago de Piães. 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 27.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 37 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.