Skip to content
worldfires
PT · Portugal · →

Fornelos fire, August 2016 Fornelos, Moimenta, Santiago de Piães

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2016, 02:37 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2016 in Fornelos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 394 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 10 August 2016 at 00:18 and declared extinguished on 11 August 2016.

It is the 11th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 67 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
394ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
10 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
10 Aug
2016
Heat detections
84
in a single hotspot: 72 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1011

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
62km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Fornelos 590 inhabitants · 12.9 km from the town where it started
    241 ha reached on 10 Aug
    24 %
  2. Moimenta 356 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    108 ha reached on 10 Aug
    16 %
  3. Santiago de Piães 1,607 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the town
    33 ha reached on 10 Aug
    1.9 %
  4. Travanca 712 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town
    13 ha reached on 10 Aug
    2.6 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland70 %
  • Other natural land25 %
  • Agricultural areas4.0 %
  • Mixed forest0.8 %

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 390 ha (the satellite measured 394 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)
10 Aug 28.0 °C 27 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Aug 29.0 °C 28 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug after 30.6 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug after 29.6 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Aug after 26.7 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
15 Aug after 25.4 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Aug after 22.8 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Aug after 21.9 °C 67 % 36 km/h 1.4 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2016
After · 18 Aug 2016

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 11 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 198 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 87: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak198 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10207 µg/m³
567891011121314
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 · 84Every 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 Fornelos fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 10 August 2016 at 00:18 and declared extinguished on 11 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 394 hectares (3.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Fornelos (241 ha, 24 %); Moimenta (108 ha, 16 %); Santiago de Piães (33 ha, 1.9 %); Travanca (13 ha, 2.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.7 km of Moimenta. 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 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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
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.