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Guarda fire, 2 July 2022 Pêra do Moço, Gonçalo Bocas, Arrifana

Out · last detection 3 Jul 2022, 01:47 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2022 in Arrifana, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 741 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 2 July 2022 at 12:21 and declared extinguished on 3 July 2022.

It is the 5th largest in Guarda since 2016 (of 12 with a page). Number 18 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
741ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
2 Jul 2022 – 3 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
2 Jul
2022
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
337MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

3 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul3 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2 Jul 2022 · 636 MW · 11 3 Jul 2022 · 37 MW · 7
2 Jul 3 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
31km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 5 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Pêra do Moço 793 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town
    320 ha reached on 3 Jul
    15 %
  2. Gonçalo Bocas 204 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town
    206 ha reached on 2 Jul
    32 %
  3. Arrifana 0.8 km from the town where it started
    121 ha reached on 2 Jul
    7.6 %
  4. Jarmelo São Miguel 276 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    74 ha
    4.3 %
  5. Sul de Pinhel 360 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the town
    20 ha
    0.5 %

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 land47 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland37 %
  • Agricultural areas16 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 2 July 2022 and burned 783 ha (the satellite measured 741 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)
2 Jul 31.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jul 27.9 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 20
4 Jul after 27.9 °C 34 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 24
5 Jul after 29.0 °C 30 % 33 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2022
After · 10 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 2 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 12 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak12 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
30123456
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 · 18Every 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 2 July 2022 and 3 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 2 July 2022 at 12:21 and declared extinguished on 3 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 741 hectares (7.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Pêra do Moço (320 ha, 15 %); Gonçalo Bocas (206 ha, 32 %); Arrifana (121 ha, 7.6 %); Jarmelo São Miguel (74 ha, 4.3 %); Sul de Pinhel (20 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.8 km of Gonçalo Bocas. 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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.

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 18 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 783 official ha against 741 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

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.