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Idanha-a-Nova fire, August 2016 Oledo, Idanha-a-Nova e Alcafozes

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2016, 14:19 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2016 in Oledo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 279 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 89 in Portugal in 2016, of 181.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

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Burnt area
279ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
10 Aug 2016 – 10 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
10 Aug
2016
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
152MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

10 Aug 2016 · 152 MW · 17

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
51km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Oledo 284 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    266 ha reached on 10 Aug
    9.6 %
  2. Idanha-a-Nova e Alcafozes 2,388 inhabitants · 11.4 km from the centre
    13 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.0 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub58 %
  • Agricultural areas21 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
  • Broadleaved forest6.4 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 10 August 2016 and burned 398 ha (the satellite measured 279 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
10 Aug 32.0 °C 28 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Aug after 32.6 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 34.5 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Aug after 35.2 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 34.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug after 32.7 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Aug after 31.7 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Aug after 31.1 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Aug after 32.9 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Aug after 28.6 °C 50 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Aug after 29.8 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 13 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1055 µg/m³
8910111213
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 · 17Every 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 Idanha-a-Nova fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2016 and 10 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 279 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Oledo (266 ha, 9.6 %); Idanha-a-Nova e Alcafozes (13 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Oledo 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 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 ›

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 17 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 398 official ha against 279 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • 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.