How long did the Messejana fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2025 and 11 August 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 158 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Messejana (158 ha, 1.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Messejana and came within 1.1 km of its centre. 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 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · 2025-08-11 → 2025-08-11

Messejana fire, August 2025 Messejana

Out · last measured on 11 Aug 2025

The fire started on 11 August 2025 in Messejana, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 158 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

Number 74 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Aljustrel · 2025 Ferreira do Alentejo · 2025 Ourique · 2019 Grândola · 2017

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks it up automatically when it is available.

Burnt area: 158ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 11 Aug 2025 – 11 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; freguesias
Started on: 11 Aug; 2025
Danger at start: 49; Very high · FWI index

The weather it burned in

41°high

26km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 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

Messejana 811 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the centre where it started

158 ha

1.4 %

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 areas64 %
Scrub and transitional woodland36 %

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)
11 Aug	41.1 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
12 Aug after	42.3 °C	12 %	29 km/h	0.7 mm	Extreme 54
13 Aug after	39.5 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
14 Aug after	38.1 °C	19 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
15 Aug after	36.7 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
16 Aug after	40.8 °C	16 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
17 Aug after	38.1 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
18 Aug after	31.9 °C	30 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
19 Aug after	29.0 °C	33 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Aug after	28.6 °C	36 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Aug after	29.8 °C	29 %	36 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 · 4 Aug 2025

After · 18 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 13 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1033 µg/m³

Optical depth0.35

91011121314

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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Messejana fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2025 and 11 August 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 158 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Messejana (158 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Messejana and came within 1.1 km of its centre. 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 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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. No 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.

Where it burned