Fundão fire, August 2023 Vale de Prazeres e Mata da Rainha, Alcaide
The fire started on 25 August 2023 in Vale de Prazeres e Mata da Rainha, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 200 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 August 2023 at 11:22 and declared extinguished on 1 September 2023.
Number 20 in Portugal in 2023, of 38.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 200ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 25 Aug 2023 – 25 Aug 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 25 Aug
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 52 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 200MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
25 Aug 2023 · 200 MW · 7
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 2 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
192 ha reached on 25 Aug2.6 %
-
Alcaide 583 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre8 ha reached on 25 Aug0.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, 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
- Scrub and transitional woodland51 %
- Coniferous forest46 %
- Agricultural areas2.5 %
- Mixed forest0.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 11 %
- LIC Serra da Gardunha PTCON0028
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 25 August 2023 and burned 194 ha (the satellite measured 200 ha).
- Fundão Vale de Prazeres 25 August 2023 · 11:22 194 ha · extinguished on 1 September 2023 · cause: negligence
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Aug | 33.6 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Aug after | 26.0 °C | 30 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 27 Aug after | 25.3 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 28 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Aug after | 28.1 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Aug after | 29.1 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 31 Aug after | 31.0 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 1 Sept after | 28.2 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Sept after | 23.7 °C | 45 % | 22 km/h | 5.8 mm | Very low 5 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,531 haCastelo Branco Louriçal do CampoAugust 2017 · 4 days · 10 km away
- 68,190 haArganil Sobral de São MiguelAugust 2025 · 15 days · 22 km away
- 25,260 haSerra da Estrela SameiroAugust 2022 · 18 days · 36 km away
- 8,478 haCambasAugust 2017 · 5 days · 36 km away
- 23,594 haSabugal Quintas de São BartolomeuAugust 2025 · 7 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Fundão fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 August 2023 and 25 August 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 August 2023 at 11:22 and declared extinguished on 1 September 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 200 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vale de Prazeres e Mata da Rainha (192 ha, 2.6 %); Alcaide (8 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Vale de Prazeres e Mata da Rainha and came within 1.1 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 194 official ha against 200 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.