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Garfe fire, August 2016 Freitas e Vila Cova, Garfe, Gonça

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2016, 14:01 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2016 in Garfe, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 487 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 7 August 2016 at 11:06 and declared extinguished on 8 August 2016.

It is the 3th largest in Póvoa de Lanhoso since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 60 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
487ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
7 Aug 2016 – 10 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
7 Aug
2016
Heat detections
24
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
178MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

781011

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
53km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 19 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. Freitas e Vila Cova 748 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    223 ha reached on 10 Aug
    19 %
  2. Garfe 983 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town where it started
    118 ha reached on 7 Aug
    22 %
  3. Gonça 954 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    78 ha reached on 10 Aug
    11 %
  4. União de Freguesias de Agrela e Serafão 1,208 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    40 ha reached on 10 Aug
    4.3 %
  5. Arosa e Castelões 699 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town
    29 ha
    5.2 %

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 woodland84 %
  • Other natural land12 %
  • Agricultural areas3.5 %

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 463 ha (the satellite measured 487 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 37.5 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Aug 37.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Aug 30.7 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Aug 29.7 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Aug after 30.0 °C 18 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 31.5 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 30.2 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Aug after 28.1 °C 42 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Aug after 26.6 °C 47 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Aug after 23.6 °C 47 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Aug after 23.4 °C 64 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 15
18 Aug after 25.2 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
19 Aug after 20.6 °C 66 % 27 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2016
After · 17 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.

Detections table · 24Every 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 Garfe fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 August 2016 and 10 August 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 7 August 2016 at 11:06 and declared extinguished on 8 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 487 hectares (4.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Freitas e Vila Cova (223 ha, 19 %); Garfe (118 ha, 22 %); Gonça (78 ha, 11 %); União de Freguesias de Agrela e Serafão (40 ha, 4.3 %); Arosa e Castelões (29 ha, 5.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Garfe. 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 11 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.

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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.