How long did the Gouveia fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 9 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 8 August 2016 at 00:45 and declared extinguished on 9 August 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 917 hectares (9.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Rio Torto e Lagarinhos (378 ha, 19 %); Cativelos (232 ha, 16 %); Vila Nova de Tazem (193 ha, 12 %); Arcozelo (116 ha, 4.8 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Rio Torto e Lagarinhos 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 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2016-08-08 → 2016-08-09

Gouveia fire, 8 August 2016 Rio Torto e Lagarinhos, Cativelos, Vila Nova de Tazem

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2016, 12:57 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Rio Torto e Lagarinhos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 917 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 8 August 2016 at 00:45 and declared extinguished on 9 August 2016.

Number 36 in Portugal in 2016, of 180.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Seia · 2017 Penalva do Castelo · 2024 Serra da Estrela · 2022 Nelas · 2024

Burnt area: 917ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 8 Aug 2016 – 9 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 4; freguesias
Started on: 8 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 49; in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start: 50; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 580MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug9 Aug

Play back 9 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 9 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

50km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (9.2 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Rio Torto e Lagarinhos 745 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started

378 ha reached on 8 Aug

19 %
Cativelos 610 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

232 ha reached on 9 Aug

16 %
Vila Nova de Tazem 1,469 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre

193 ha reached on 8 Aug

12 %
Arcozelo 570 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the centre

116 ha reached on 9 Aug

4.8 %

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 woodland74 %
Agricultural areas25 %
Other natural land1.6 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015

Built-up area5.8 ha

Residents≈ 80

Inside the perimeter there were about 5.8 hectares of built-up land and about 80 residents (GHSL 2015, 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.

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 8 August 2016 and burned 747 ha (the satellite measured 917 ha).

Gouveia Rio Torto 8 August 2016 · 00:45 747 ha · extinguished on 9 August 2016 · cause: arson

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)
8 Aug	36.9 °C	17 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
9 Aug	33.6 °C	23 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
10 Aug after	30.6 °C	24 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
11 Aug after	31.7 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
12 Aug after	33.0 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
13 Aug after	34.4 °C	20 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
14 Aug after	33.4 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
15 Aug after	31.7 °C	29 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Aug after	28.9 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
17 Aug after	26.3 °C	49 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
18 Aug after	29.4 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
19 Aug after	25.8 °C	60 %	36 km/h	0.2 mm	High 23

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2016

After · 16 Aug 2016

Before After

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 12 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 142 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak142 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM10148 µg/m³

WHO 15

6789101112

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 · 49Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gouveia fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 9 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 8 August 2016 at 00:45 and declared extinguished on 9 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 917 hectares (9.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Rio Torto e Lagarinhos (378 ha, 19 %); Cativelos (232 ha, 16 %); Vila Nova de Tazem (193 ha, 12 %); Arcozelo (116 ha, 4.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Rio Torto e Lagarinhos 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 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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. 49 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 747 official ha against 917 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 2015, 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. 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.

Where it burned