How long did the Mata de Lobos fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2025 and 9 August 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,774 hectares (27.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mata de Lobos (1,162 ha, 31 %); Escalhão (1,153 ha, 15 %); Almofala e Escarigo (276 ha, 5.8 %); Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo (186 ha, 6.6 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 1.4 km of the centre of Escalhão, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2025-08-08 → 2025-08-09

Mata de Lobos fire, August 2025 Mata de Lobos, Escalhão, Almofala e Escarigo

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2025, 14:08 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2025 in Mata de Lobos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,774 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 14 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo · 2017 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2017 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2025 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2016

Burnt area: 2,774ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 8 Aug 2025 – 9 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 4; freguesias
Started on: 8 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 39; in a single hotspot: 137 MW
Danger at start: 41; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 450MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug9 Aug

Play back 9 Aug 2025

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 9 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

39°high

40km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 462 ha in 2017.

462 ha Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo fire, August 2017 532 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 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

Mata de Lobos 287 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre where it started

1,162 ha reached on 8 Aug

31 %
Escalhão 566 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre

1,153 ha

15 %
Almofala e Escarigo 180 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the centre

276 ha reached on 8 Aug

5.8 %
Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo 1,952 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre

186 ha

6.6 %

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

Other natural land40 %
Scrub and transitional woodland37 %
Agricultural areas18 %
Broadleaved forest5.1 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 99 %

ZEPA + LIC Arribes del Duero ES4150096 · ES0000118
LIC Douro Internacional PTCON0022
ZEPA Douro Internacional e Vale do Águeda PTZPE0038

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 7 August 2025 and burned 1,270 ha (the satellite measured 2,774 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo Almofala 7 August 2025 · 20:50 1,270 ha · extinguished on 9 August 2025 · cause: negligence

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)
8 Aug	38.5 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Aug	38.9 °C	12 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
10 Aug after	39.3 °C	13 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Aug after	39.2 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug after	37.7 °C	13 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
13 Aug after	35.9 °C	20 %	46 km/h	0.7 mm	Very high 48
14 Aug after	37.9 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
15 Aug after	38.0 °C	13 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 75
16 Aug after	39.2 °C	12 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
17 Aug after	37.6 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
18 Aug after	30.4 °C	21 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
19 Aug after	28.1 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2025

After · 16 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 10 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak66 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1093 µg/m³

Optical depth0.84

WHO 15

6789101112

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 · 39Every 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 Mata de Lobos fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2025 and 9 August 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,774 hectares (27.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mata de Lobos (1,162 ha, 31 %); Escalhão (1,153 ha, 15 %); Almofala e Escarigo (276 ha, 5.8 %); Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo (186 ha, 6.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 1.4 km of the centre of Escalhão, the closest of the areas it touched. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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 · 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 do you think is wrong?

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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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 39 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 1,270 official ha against 2,774 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.

Where it burned