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PT · Portugal ·

Fornos de Algodres fire, 7 August 2026 Mesquitela, Carrapichana, Juncais, Vila Ruiva e Vila Soeiro do Chão

Out · last detection 7 Aug 2026, 14:12 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2026 in Carrapichana, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 311 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 freguesias. According to ICNF, it was detected on 7 August 2026 at 13:40 and declared extinguished on 8 August 2026.

Number 28 in Portugal in 2026, of 88.

Burnt area
311ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 1day
7 Aug 2026 – 7 Aug 2026
Freguesias hit
3
freguesias
Started on
7 Aug
2026
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
263MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug7 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

7 Aug 2026 · 263 MW · 8

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
35km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 8 Aug.

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 168 ha in 2017, 24 ha in 2019, 24 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 196 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each freguesia

  1. Mesquitela 203 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    131 ha
    7.8 %
  2. Carrapichana 180 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    120 ha reached on 7 Aug
    21 %
  3. Juncais, Vila Ruiva e Vila Soeiro do Chão 553 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre
    60 ha reached on 7 Aug
    3.0 %

Burnt area inside each freguesia, 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

  • Other natural land65 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland23 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.18 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.18 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 7 August 2026 and burned 300 ha (the satellite measured 311 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)
7 Aug 32.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug after 32.9 °C 28 % 43 km/h 1.0 mm Very high 40

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 38.8, a minimum humidity of 29% and 31 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 61.

FWI at the start 38.8
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 31
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Vila Nova de Foz Côa fire, August 2016
209 ha 2 days FWI 40.5 Min. humidity 29 % 65 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
383 ha
median area
25 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 38 of 61 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (311 ha against a median of 383 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 23 of 61, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

1.0 mmfirst rain
8 Augthe day after it ended
35km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Aug, and on 8 Aug 1.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 38 of 61, with a median of 2.3 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2026
After · 14 Aug 2026

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 10 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 49 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak49 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1059 µg/m³
Optical depth0.57
5 Aug7 Aug9 Aug
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 · 8Every 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 Fornos de Algodres fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (7 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 7 August 2026 (1 day from 7 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate. According to ICNF, it was detected on 7 August 2026 at 13:40 and declared extinguished on 8 August 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 311 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which freguesias burned?
The fire entered 3 freguesias: Mesquitela (131 ha, 7.8 %); Carrapichana (120 ha, 21 %); Juncais, Vila Ruiva e Vila Soeiro do Chão (60 ha, 3.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Carrapichana 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 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 61. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 383 ha; 25 % went past 1,000 ha. In 23 of 61, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.3 mm.

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

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night 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
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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 8 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 300 official ha against 311 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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. Freguesia boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per freguesia is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.