Montalegre fire, 28 August 2022 Sarraquinhos, Cervos, Ardãos e Bobadela
The fire started on 28 August 2022 in Sarraquinhos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 270 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 28 August 2022 at 15:29 and declared extinguished on 29 August 2022.
It is the 17th largest in Montalegre since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 48 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 270ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 28 Aug 2022 – 30 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- freguesias
- Started on
- 28 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 1
- in a single hotspot: 34 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 34MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
29 Aug 2022 · 34 MW · 1
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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.4 mm on 5 Sept.
This area had burned before
5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14 ha in 2021.
What happened to each town
-
233 ha reached on 29 Aug7.0 %
-
Cervos 227 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the centre23 ha0.7 %
-
Ardãos e Bobadela 463 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre14 ha0.4 %
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
- Other natural land55 %
- Agricultural areas43 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland1.8 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to ICNF, this fire started on 28 August 2022 and burned 239 ha (the satellite measured 270 ha).
- Montalegre Cervos 28 August 2022 · 15:29 239 ha · extinguished on 29 August 2022 · cause: unknown
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Aug | 28.6 °C | 33 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 29 Aug | 25.4 °C | 46 % | 35 km/h | 1.5 mm | Low 11 |
| 30 Aug | 24.0 °C | 38 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 31 Aug after | 23.0 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 1 Sept after | 22.2 °C | 48 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Sept after | 20.4 °C | 51 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 3 Sept after | 21.2 °C | 38 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 4 Sept after | 19.8 °C | 52 % | 59 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 5 Sept after | 18.6 °C | 77 % | 53 km/h | 6.4 mm | Very low 0 |
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 29 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 22 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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,493 haVilarelho Da RaiaAugust 2025 · 2 days · 15 km away
- 3,127 haChaves BusteloJuly 2022 · 5 days · 16 km away
- 24,471 haMonterreiAugust 2025 · 8 days · 22 km away
- 3,240 haMuíñosOctober 2017 · 2 days · 31 km away
- 2,869 haRibeira de Pena AlvãoSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 35 km away
- 7,641 haMurça TresminasJuly 2022 · 5 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Montalegre fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 28 August 2022 and 30 August 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 28 August 2022 at 15:29 and declared extinguished on 29 August 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 270 hectares (2.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sarraquinhos (233 ha, 7.0 %); Cervos (23 ha, 0.7 %); Ardãos e Bobadela (14 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Sarraquinhos and came within 1.4 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 28.6 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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 · 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. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 239 official ha against 270 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.