How long did the Lousã fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2025 to 18 August 2025 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 August 2025 to 17 August 2025. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 August 2025 at 13:46 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2025.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,388 hectares (33.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: União das Freguesias de Lousã e Vilarinho (2,496 ha, 34 %); Góis (497 ha, 6.8 %); Serpins (399 ha, 11 %); Castanheira de Pera e Coentral (0 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in União das Freguesias de Lousã e Vilarinho 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 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2025-08-14 → 2025-08-18

Lousã fire, August 2025 União das Freguesias de Lousã e Vilarinho, Góis, Serpins

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2025, 14:40 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2025 in União das Freguesias de Lousã e Vilarinho, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,388 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 August 2025 at 13:46 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2025.

Number 12 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pombeiro da Beira · 2017 Oleiros · 2017 Pedrógão Grande · 2017 Pampilhosa da Serra · 2017

Burnt area: 3,388ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 5days; 14 Aug 2025 – 18 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 4; freguesias
Started on: 14 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 323; in a single hotspot: 413 MW
Danger at start: 46; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 2.8GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug18 Aug

Play back 18 Aug 2025

How it evolved, day by day

14 Aug 15 Aug 16 Aug 17 Aug 18 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

33°high

54km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 124 ha in 2017, 26 ha in 2020, 4 ha in 2022.

124 ha Pombeiro da Beira fire, October 2017 132,830 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.1% of the area of London (34 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

União das Freguesias de Lousã e Vilarinho 2,893 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started

2,496 ha reached on 14 Aug

34 %
Góis 1,874 inhabitants · 4.9 km from the centre

497 ha reached on 15 Aug

6.8 %
Serpins 1,711 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the centre

399 ha reached on 15 Aug

11 %
Castanheira de Pera e Coentral 2,657 inhabitants

0 ha

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

Scrub and transitional woodland38 %
Coniferous forest25 %
Mixed forest24 %
Broadleaved forest6.5 %
Other natural land5.1 %
Agricultural areas2.4 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 70 %

LIC Serra da Lousã PTCON0060

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 14 August 2025 and burned 3,319 ha (the satellite measured 3,388 ha).

Lousã Lousã 14 August 2025 · 13:46 3,319 ha · extinguished on 19 August 2025 · 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)
14 Aug	33.3 °C	21 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
15 Aug	30.0 °C	29 %	54 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
16 Aug	28.8 °C	40 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
17 Aug	25.2 °C	41 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Aug	21.9 °C	52 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
19 Aug after	21.4 °C	42 %	59 km/h	0.3 mm	High 25
20 Aug after	21.9 °C	49 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
21 Aug after	23.7 °C	45 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
22 Aug after	28.1 °C	27 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
23 Aug after	27.0 °C	37 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
24 Aug after	23.5 °C	48 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
25 Aug after	24.8 °C	46 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
26 Aug after	23.2 °C	47 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
27 Aug after	19.5 °C	52 %	55 km/h	0.2 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Aug 2025

After · 25 Aug 2025

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 17 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 174 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak174 µg/m³

Days over the guideline7 days

PM10206 µg/m³

Optical depth1.00

WHO 15

121314151617181920

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 · 323Every 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 Lousã fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 August 2025 to 18 August 2025 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 August 2025 to 17 August 2025. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 August 2025 at 13:46 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2025.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,388 hectares (33.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: União das Freguesias de Lousã e Vilarinho (2,496 ha, 34 %); Góis (497 ha, 6.8 %); Serpins (399 ha, 11 %); Castanheira de Pera e Coentral (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in União das Freguesias de Lousã e Vilarinho 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 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

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.

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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What really happened?

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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 August 2025 to 17 August 2025. 323 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 3,319 official ha against 3,388 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.

Where it burned