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Monção fire, August 2016 Insalde e Porreiras, Boivão, Formariz e Ferreira

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2016, 14:01 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2016 in Insalde e Porreiras, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,253 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 8 municipalities.

Number 28 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
1,253ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
9 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
8
freguesias
Started on
9 Aug
2016
Heat detections
73
in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

91011

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

28°high
59km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 17 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Insalde e Porreiras 393 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    300 ha reached on 10 Aug
    17 %
  2. Boivão 185 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town
    242 ha reached on 9 Aug
    30 %
  3. Formariz e Ferreira 915 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the town
    197 ha reached on 11 Aug
    10 %
  4. Abedim 191 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    181 ha reached on 9 Aug
    23 %
  5. Pias 1.4 km from the town
    133 ha reached on 9 Aug
    12 %
  6. União das Freguesias de Gandra e Taião 1,391 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town
    124 ha reached on 10 Aug
    6.2 %
  7. Barroças e Taias 279 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town where it started
    72 ha reached on 9 Aug
    28 %
  8. Cerdal 1,550 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town
    5 ha reached on 10 Aug
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Other natural land49 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland42 %
  • Agricultural areas4.6 %
  • Mixed forest4.4 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 965 ha (the satellite measured 1,253 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
9 Aug 26.3 °C 40 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Aug 26.8 °C 26 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Aug 27.5 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Aug after 27.9 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Aug after 25.1 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
14 Aug after 24.3 °C 50 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
15 Aug after 23.5 °C 56 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
16 Aug after 19.9 °C 54 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
17 Aug after 19.0 °C 69 % 34 km/h 1.4 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2016
After · 18 Aug 2016

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 12 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak65 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10106 µg/m³
789101112131415161718
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 · 73Every 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 Monção fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,253 hectares (12.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 8 municipalities: Insalde e Porreiras (300 ha, 17 %); Boivão (242 ha, 30 %); Formariz e Ferreira (197 ha, 10 %); Abedim (181 ha, 23 %); Pias (133 ha, 12 %); União das Freguesias de Gandra e Taião (124 ha, 6.2 %); Barroças e Taias (72 ha, 28 %); Cerdal (5 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Abedim. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 27.9 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.