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Mirandela fire, August 2025 Trindade, Freixeda e Vila Verde, Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2025, 02:39 UTC

The fire started on 18 August 2025 in Frechas, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,163 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 14 municipalities.

Number 9 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Torre de Moncorvo · 2026Alijó · 2017Valpaços · 2026Murça · 2022

Burnt area
5,163ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
18 Aug 2025 – 20 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
14
freguesias
Started on
18 Aug
2025
Heat detections
162
in a single hotspot: 188 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
775MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Aug20 Aug
20 Aug 2025

How it evolved, day by day

18 Aug 2025 · 707 MW · 36 19 Aug 2025 · 1,544 MW · 119 20 Aug 2025 · 74 MW · 7
18 Aug 19 Aug 20 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

30°high
49km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.3% of the area of London (52 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

  1. Trindade
    895 ha reached on 18 Aug
    60 %
  2. Freixeda e Vila Verde 137 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    833 ha reached on 18 Aug
    39 %
  3. Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde 266 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre
    651 ha reached on 19 Aug
    13 %
  4. Frechas 732 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre where it started
    495 ha reached on 18 Aug
    27 %
  5. Vale Frechoso 154 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the centre
    492 ha reached on 18 Aug
    26 %
  6. Benlhevai 116 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    467 ha reached on 18 Aug
    41 %
  7. Santa Comba de Vilariça 360 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    408 ha reached on 19 Aug
    34 %
  8. Vilarelhos 217 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre
    381 ha reached on 19 Aug
    31 %
  9. Vilares da Vilariça 132 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    254 ha reached on 19 Aug
    17 %
  10. São Salvador 200 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the centre
    132 ha
    9.2 %
  11. União das Freguesias de Pombal e Vales 147 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre
    107 ha
    7.1 %
  12. Alfândega da Fé 1,937 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the centre
    22 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.6 %
  13. União das Freguesias de Assares e Lodões 214 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre
    20 ha reached on 19 Aug
    1.4 %
  14. Caravelas 152 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the centre
    11 ha reached on 19 Aug
    0.9 %

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 areas45 %
  • Other natural land26 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland23 %
  • Mixed forest2.4 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.4 %
  • Coniferous forest0.6 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area1.2 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.2 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Fogo que começou em Mirandela · Incêndio de Mirandela/Vila Flor/Alfândega da Fé
Official area reported: 5,615 ha (the satellite measured 5,163 ha)
Declared extinguished: 20 August 2025

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
18 Aug 29.8 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Aug 27.3 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Aug 26.5 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug after 27.4 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Aug after 29.9 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
23 Aug after 31.6 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug after 32.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Aug after 32.0 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Aug after 31.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Aug after 24.6 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Aug after 23.7 °C 28 % 43 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
29 Aug after 25.7 °C 37 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 26.4 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Aug 2025
After · 27 Aug 2025

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 21 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 80 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak80 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10117 µg/m³
Optical depth1.85
1617181920212223
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 · 162Every 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 Mirandela fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2025 and 20 August 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,163 hectares (51.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 14 municipalities: Trindade (895 ha, 60 %); Freixeda e Vila Verde (833 ha, 39 %); Eucisia, Gouveia e Valverde (651 ha, 13 %); Frechas (495 ha, 27 %); Vale Frechoso (492 ha, 26 %); Benlhevai (467 ha, 41 %); Santa Comba de Vilariça (408 ha, 34 %); Vilarelhos (381 ha, 31 %); Vilares da Vilariça (254 ha, 17 %); São Salvador (132 ha, 9.2 %); União das Freguesias de Pombal e Vales (107 ha, 7.1 %); Alfândega da Fé (22 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire reached the centre of Freixeda e Vila Verde: 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 29.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 162 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 3 confirmed sources.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.