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Monchique fire, July 2021 Mexilhoeira Grande, Marmelete

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2021, 02:51 UTC

The fire started on 17 July 2021 in Mexilhoeira Grande, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,121 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 17 July 2021 at 13:26 and declared extinguished on 18 July 2021.

Number 2 in Portugal in 2021, of 30.

Burnt area
2,121ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
17 Jul 2021 – 18 Jul 2021
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
17 Jul
2021
Heat detections
61
in a single hotspot: 383 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jul 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jul18 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

1718

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
59km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 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: 10 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mexilhoeira Grande 4,315 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    1,489 ha reached on 17 Jul
    16 %
  2. Marmelete 698 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town
    636 ha reached on 17 Jul
    4.5 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub43 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland32 %
  • Agricultural areas16 %
  • Broadleaved forest8.3 %
  • Artificial surfaces0.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 7 %

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 17 July 2021 and burned 1,915 ha (the satellite measured 2,121 ha).

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)
17 Jul 32.5 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jul 25.4 °C 48 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jul after 23.0 °C 54 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jul after 25.9 °C 50 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Jul after 28.8 °C 38 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Jul after 30.5 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jul after 26.5 °C 41 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul after 25.1 °C 48 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Jul after 25.9 °C 56 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Jul after 26.2 °C 56 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
27 Jul after 29.2 °C 37 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jul after 28.3 °C 42 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jul 2021
After · 25 Jul 2021

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 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1021 µg/m³
15161718192021
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 · 61Every 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 Monchique fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 July 2021 and 18 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 17 July 2021 at 13:26 and declared extinguished on 18 July 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,121 hectares (21.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mexilhoeira Grande (1,489 ha, 16 %); Marmelete (636 ha, 4.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Mexilhoeira Grande. 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 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 59 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

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.

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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.

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.