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Fatela fire, July 2022 Pero Viseu, União do Grande Fundão, Fatela

Out · last measured on 18 Jul 2022

The fire started on 18 July 2022 in Fatela, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 921 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

Number 15 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
921ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
18 Jul 2022 – 18 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
18 Jul
2022
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
43km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 85 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Pero Viseu 644 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    373 ha
    19 %
  2. União do Grande Fundão 12,641 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town
    329 ha
    5.7 %
  3. Fatela 456 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town where it started
    220 ha
    19 %

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 areas60 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland25 %
  • Other natural land14 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 17 July 2022 and burned 1,184 ha (the satellite measured 921 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)
18 Jul 31.8 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Jul after 30.1 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jul after 35.9 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jul after 37.0 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Jul after 36.0 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Jul after 37.2 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
24 Jul after 35.1 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 Jul after 35.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Jul after 33.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Jul after 34.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Jul after 32.3 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2022
After · 25 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 16 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
161718192021
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Fatela fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2022 and 18 July 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 921 hectares (9.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pero Viseu (373 ha, 19 %); União do Grande Fundão (329 ha, 5.7 %); Fatela (220 ha, 19 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Pero Viseu. 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 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.