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Cinfães fire, April 2026 Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires

Out · last measured on 1 Apr 2026

The fire started on 1 April 2026 in Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 110 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 73 in Portugal in 2026, of 78.

Burnt area
110ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
1 Apr 2026 – 1 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit
1
freguesias
Started on
1 Apr
2026
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Apr1 Apr

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

  1. Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires 517 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the town 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 is from the town centre 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 %

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, 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 (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 after 17.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
3 Apr after 19.1 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Low 8
4 Apr after 21.0 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
5 Apr after 22.1 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Low 9
6 Apr after 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 · 25 Mar 2026
After · 8 Apr 2026

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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cinfães fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 April 2026 and 1 April 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
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 closest fire to a town centre came within 3.9 km of Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires. 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 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.