Montalegre fire, 29 January 2022 Chã, Meixedo e Padornelos
The fire started on 29 January 2022 in Chã, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 190 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 29 January 2022 at 15:49 and declared extinguished on 29 January 2022.
It is the 27th largest in Montalegre since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 71 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 190ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 29 Jan 2022 – 31 Jan 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 29 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 5
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 5
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 62MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 118 ha in 2016, 1 ha in 2020.
- 75 ha Montalegre fire, September 2016 147 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 43 ha Chã fire, October 2016 161 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Montalegre fire, March 2020 153 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
174 ha reached on 29 Jan3.4 %
-
Meixedo e Padornelos 265 inhabitants · 4.9 km from the centre16 ha reached on 30 Jan0.5 %
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 land73 %
- Agricultural areas15 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Complex of 3 fires according to ICNF
According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 219 ha (the satellite measured 190 ha).
ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Montalegre Chã 28 January 2022 · 17:54 13 ha · extinguished on 28 January 2022 · cause: negligence
- 2 Montalegre Chã 29 January 2022 · 15:49 139 ha · extinguished on 29 January 2022 · cause: negligence
- 3 Montalegre Chã 30 January 2022 · 14:08 67 ha · extinguished on 30 January 2022 · cause: rekindling
Total according to ICNF: 219 ha, 115 % of the 190 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jan | 12.4 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 30 Jan | 13.0 °C | 18 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 31 Jan | 12.7 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 1 Feb after | 12.4 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 2 Feb after | 14.4 °C | 39 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 3 Feb after | 11.0 °C | 47 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 4 Feb after | 7.9 °C | 77 % | 18 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very low 2 |
| 5 Feb after | 10.1 °C | 51 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 6 Feb after | 11.0 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 7 Feb after | 14.6 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 8 Feb after | 12.7 °C | 36 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 9 Feb after | 14.4 °C | 42 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 10 Feb after | 13.4 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.9 mm | Very low 3 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 3 February 2022 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 5Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Montalegre fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 29 January 2022 and 31 January 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 29 January 2022 at 15:49 and declared extinguished on 29 January 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 190 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Chã (174 ha, 3.4 %); Meixedo e Padornelos (16 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Chã and came within 4.5 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 13.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.
- 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 ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 5 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 219 official ha against 190 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.