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Lama de Arcos fire, July 2022 Lama de Arcos, Mairos

Out · last detection 21 Jul 2022, 14:13 UTC

The fire started on 19 July 2022 in Lama de Arcos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 395 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 10th largest in Chaves since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 34 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chaves · 2020Chaves · 2022Vilarelho Da Raia · 2025Monterrei · 2025

Burnt area
395ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
19 Jul 2022 – 21 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
19 Jul
2022
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Average daily power
26MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jul21 Jul
21 Jul 2022

How it evolved, day by day

20 Jul 2022 · 7 MW · 1 21 Jul 2022 · 46 MW · 5
20 Jul 21 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

34°high
35km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 37 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Lama de Arcos 291 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    370 ha reached on 20 Jul
    27 %
  2. Mairos 271 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre
    20 ha
    1.7 %

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

  • Agricultural areas43 %
  • Other natural land31 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland26 %

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

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)
19 Jul 27.3 °C 40 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Jul 33.0 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jul 34.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
22 Jul after 32.4 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Jul after 33.8 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jul after 32.6 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul after 30.0 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Jul after 30.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jul after 31.2 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jul after 29.6 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jul after 31.3 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Jul after 35.2 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Jul after 36.2 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jul 2022
After · 28 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 20 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1052 µg/m³
1718192021222324
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 · 6Every 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 Lama de Arcos fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 19 July 2022 and 21 July 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 395 hectares (4.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lama de Arcos (370 ha, 27 %); Mairos (20 ha, 1.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Lama de Arcos 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 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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 · 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.

Report an error
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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. 6 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • 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.