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PT · Portugal ·

Montalegre fire, 26 September 2025 Cambeses do Rio, Donões e Mourilhe

Out · last detection 26 Sept 2025, 14:10 UTC

The fire started on 26 September 2025 in Cambeses do Rio, Donões e Mourilhe, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 190 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single freguesia. According to ICNF, it was detected on 26 September 2025 at 13:14 and declared extinguished on 27 September 2025.

It is the 28th largest in Montalegre since 2016 (of 65 with a page). Number 67 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Burnt area
190ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
26 Sept 2025 – 26 Sept 2025
Freguesias hit
1
freguesias
Started on
26 Sept
2025
Heat detections
15
in a single hotspot: 288 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.7GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Sept26 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

26 Sept 2025 · 1,689 MW · 15

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

The weather it burned in

20°high
32km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.4 mm on 27 Sept.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 34 ha in 2017, 7 ha in 2021, 2 ha in 2022, 71 ha in 2023.

What happened to each freguesia

  1. Cambeses do Rio, Donões e Mourilhe 273 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre where it started
    190 ha reached on 26 Sept
    4.2 %

Burnt area inside each freguesia, 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 land78 %
  • Agricultural areas15 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland6.4 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 26 September 2025 and burned 194 ha (the satellite measured 190 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)
26 Sept 19.8 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Sept after 14.6 °C 41 % 53 km/h 3.4 mm High 26

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 27.5, a minimum humidity of 29% and 15 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 25.

FWI at the start 27.5
Minimum humidity 29 %
Days without rain 15
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Vilardevós fire, August 2025
563 ha 2 days FWI 28.1 Min. humidity 29 % 46 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 12 Aug.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
462 ha
median area
24 %
went past 1,000 ha
21.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 19 of 25 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 190 ha against a median of 462 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 6 of 25, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 21.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

3.4 mmfirst rain
27 Septthe day after it ended
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 26 Sept, and on 27 Sept 3.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 19 of 25, with a median of 21.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Sept 2025
After · 3 Oct 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 24 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
Optical depth0.15
24 Sept26 Sept28 Sept
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 · 15Every 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 Montalegre fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 26 September 2025 and 26 September 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 26 September 2025 at 13:14 and declared extinguished on 27 September 2025.
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 freguesias burned?
The fire only entered Cambeses do Rio, Donões e Mourilhe (190 ha, 4.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Cambeses do Rio, Donões e Mourilhe and came within 2.0 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 19.8 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 25. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 462 ha; 24 % went past 1,000 ha. In 6 of 25, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 21.8 mm.

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.

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 15 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 194 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.
  • 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. Freguesia boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per freguesia is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.