How long did the Cinfães fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (1 April 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 6 April 2026 (10 days from 28 March 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 110 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires (110 ha, 2.9 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires and came within 3.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 17.7 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.

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.

PT · Portugal · 2026-03-28 → 2026-04-06

Cinfães fire, 28 March 2026 Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires

Out · last detection 4 Apr 2026, 01:48 UTC

The fire started on 28 March 2026 in Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 110 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 29th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 81 in Portugal in 2026, of 86.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tendais · 2017 Cinfães · 2017 Castro Daire · 2024 União das Freguesias de Campelo e Ovil e Loivos do Monte · 2024

Burnt area: 110ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: ≈ 10days; 28 Mar 2026 – 6 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; freguesias
Started on: 28 Mar; 2026
Heat detections: 4; in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start: 8; Low · FWI index
Average daily power: 26MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Mar6 Apr

Play back 4 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

28 Mar 4 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

18°high

42km/h · peak gust

34%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 6 Apr.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 110 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2022, 3 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires 517 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the centre where it started

110 ha reached on 28 Mar

2.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Other natural land100 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

LIC Serra de Montemuro PTCON0025

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

Several official records match this area

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 88 ha (the satellite measured 110 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 62 ha 2 26 ha

29 Mar31 Mar

negligence

1 Cinfães Ramires 29 March 2026 · 21:55 62 ha · extinguished on 29 March 2026 · cause: negligence
2 Cinfães Ramires 30 March 2026 · 07:01 26 ha · extinguished on 30 March 2026 · cause: negligence

Total according to ICNF: 88 ha, 80 % of the 110 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
1 Apr	17.7 °C	34 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
2 Apr	17.7 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 7
3 Apr	19.1 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 8
4 Apr	21.0 °C	34 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 10
5 Apr	22.1 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
6 Apr	22.5 °C	22 %	56 km/h	3.9 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Mar 2026

After · 13 Apr 2026

Before After

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 2 April 2026 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

PM1017 µg/m³

Optical depth0.18

30311234

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 · 4Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cinfães fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (1 April 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 6 April 2026 (10 days from 28 March 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 110 hectares (1.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires (110 ha, 2.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires and came within 3.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 17.7 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 4 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 88 official ha against 110 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned