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Guarda fire, 18 July 2022 Alvendre, Guarda, Faia

Out · last detection 19 Jul 2022, 01:47 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2022 in Guarda, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 696 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 18 July 2022 at 14:13 and declared extinguished on 19 July 2022.

It is the 7th largest in Guarda since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 19 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
696ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
18 Jul 2022 – 19 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
18 Jul
2022
Heat detections
4
in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
261MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul19 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1819

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
52km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Alvendre 186 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town
    322 ha
    25 %
  2. Guarda 26,446 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town where it started
    222 ha reached on 18 Jul
    5.9 %
  3. Faia 0.3 km from the town
    153 ha reached on 19 Jul
    16 %

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

  • Other natural land64 %
  • Agricultural areas15 %
  • Mixed forest11 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland10 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 18 July 2022 and burned 638 ha (the satellite measured 696 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)
18 Jul 29.3 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Jul 25.8 °C 36 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Jul after 31.7 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Jul after 32.7 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul after 31.9 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul after 33.0 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jul after 31.2 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jul after 30.2 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jul after 28.9 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul after 29.5 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 28.0 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul after 30.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jul 2022
After · 26 Jul 2022

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 · 4Every 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 Guarda fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2022 and 19 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 18 July 2022 at 14:13 and declared extinguished on 19 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 696 hectares (7.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Alvendre (322 ha, 25 %); Guarda (222 ha, 5.9 %); Faia (153 ha, 16 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Alvendre. 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 29.3 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.

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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.