Covilhã fire, August 2020 Aldeia de São Francisco de Assis, Barroca
The fire started on 25 August 2020 in Aldeia de São Francisco de Assis, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 238 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 August 2020 at 14:25 and declared extinguished on 26 August 2020.
Number 36 in Portugal in 2020, of 67.
The power measured by the satellite is low (3.1 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…
- Burnt area
- 238ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 25 Aug 2020 – 26 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 3
- in a single hotspot: 3 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 9MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
26 Aug 2020 · 9 MW · 3
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
235 ha reached on 26 Aug15 %
-
Barroca 378 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the centre3 ha0.1 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland62 %
- Coniferous forest38 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to ICNF, this fire started on 25 August 2020 and burned 231 ha (the satellite measured 238 ha).
- Covilhã Aldeia de São Francisco de Assis 25 August 2020 · 14:25 231 ha · extinguished on 26 August 2020 · cause: unknown
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 31.2 °C | 28 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Aug | 32.1 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 45 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 28 Aug after | 24.2 °C | 36 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Aug after | 22.2 °C | 34 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 30 Aug after | 24.2 °C | 26 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 31 Aug after | 27.0 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 1 Sept after | 26.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Sept after | 29.9 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 5 Sept after | 32.3 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 26 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 3Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 68,190 haArganil Sobral de São MiguelAugust 2025 · 15 days · 6 km away
- 8,372 haPampilhosa da Serra Fajão-VidualOctober 2017 · 4 days · 16 km away
- 8,478 haCambasAugust 2017 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 34,844 haOleiros MadeirãOctober 2017 · 8 days · 27 km away
- 15,536 haProença-a-Nova União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da BeiraSeptember 2020 · 8 days · 28 km away
- 25,260 haSerra da Estrela SameiroAugust 2022 · 18 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Covilhã fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2020 and 26 August 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 August 2020 at 14:25 and declared extinguished on 26 August 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 238 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Aldeia de São Francisco de Assis (235 ha, 15 %); Barroca (3 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Aldeia de São Francisco de Assis and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.1 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 231 official ha against 238 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.