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Fafe fire, September 2020 Moreira do Rei e Várzea Cova, Aboim, Felgueiras, Gontim e Pedraído, Cabeceiras de Basto

Out · last detection 10 Sept 2020, 03:21 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2020 in Uni3O Das Freguesias De Refojos De Basto, Outeiro, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 776 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 8 September 2020 at 05:11 and declared extinguished on 8 September 2020.

It is the 5th largest in Cabeceiras de Basto since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 16 in Portugal in 2020, of 67.

Burnt area
776ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
5 Sept 2020 – 10 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
5 Sept
2020
Heat detections
51
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
431MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept10 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

68910

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
56km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.5 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 199 ha in 2016, 117 ha in 2017, 61 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 342 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Moreira do Rei e Várzea Cova 1,656 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the town where it started
    315 ha reached on 6 Sept
    11 %
  2. Aboim, Felgueiras, Gontim e Pedraído 773 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town
    215 ha reached on 8 Sept
    8.0 %
  3. Cabeceiras de Basto 616 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the town
    175 ha reached on 6 Sept
    7.1 %
  4. Uni3O Das Freguesias De Refojos De Basto, Outeiro 1,039 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the town
    71 ha reached on 6 Sept
    2.4 %

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 land70 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland24 %
  • Agricultural areas4.4 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.7 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 783 ha (the satellite measured 776 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)
5 Sept 29.1 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Sept 28.7 °C 32 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Sept 25.3 °C 24 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Sept 25.6 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Sept 26.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
10 Sept 27.8 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Sept after 28.1 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Sept after 30.2 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Sept after 29.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Sept after 22.1 °C 53 % 44 km/h 4.5 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2020
After · 17 Sept 2020

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 2020 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak30 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1041 µg/m³
345678910111213
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 · 51Every 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 Fafe fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 September 2020 and 10 September 2020: 6 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 8 September 2020 at 05:11 and declared extinguished on 8 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 776 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Moreira do Rei e Várzea Cova (315 ha, 11 %); Aboim, Felgueiras, Gontim e Pedraído (215 ha, 8.0 %); Cabeceiras de Basto (175 ha, 7.1 %); Uni3O Das Freguesias De Refojos De Basto, Outeiro (71 ha, 2.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.8 km of Aboim, Felgueiras, Gontim e Pedraído. 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 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

Report an error
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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.