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Faro fire, July 2022 Almancil, Montenegro

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2022, 03:03 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2022 in Almancil, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 647 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 12 July 2022 at 23:30 and declared extinguished on 14 July 2022.

Number 20 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
647ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
12 Jul 2022 – 14 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
12 Jul
2022
Heat detections
52
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
611MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

131415

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
60km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 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

  1. Almancil 11,293 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town where it started
    430 ha reached on 13 Jul
    6.9 %
  2. Montenegro 8,614 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    219 ha reached on 13 Jul
    10 %

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

  • Agricultural areas34 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland26 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub23 %
  • Artificial surfaces8.7 %
  • Coniferous forest8.5 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 64 %

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, this fire started on 12 July 2022 and burned 700 ha (the satellite measured 647 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)
12 Jul 33.7 °C 30 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
13 Jul 37.5 °C 19 % 54 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 64
14 Jul 37.3 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
15 Jul after 33.5 °C 35 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jul after 33.8 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jul after 33.0 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Jul after 34.2 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jul after 33.8 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Jul after 37.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Jul after 34.7 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul after 38.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jul after 41.2 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
24 Jul after 41.2 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2022
After · 21 Jul 2022

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 14 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
1011121314151617
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 · 52Every 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 Faro fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 July 2022 and 14 July 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 12 July 2022 at 23:30 and declared extinguished on 14 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 647 hectares (6.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Almancil (430 ha, 6.9 %); Montenegro (219 ha, 10 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.4 km of Montenegro. 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 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, class Extreme.
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.