Montalegre fire, July 2026 Cabril
The fire started on 1 July 2026 in Cabril, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 161 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 6 July 2026 at 20:58 and declared extinguished on 8 July 2026.
It is the 37th largest in Montalegre since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 57 in Portugal in 2026, of 86.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 161ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 7days
- 1 Jul 2026 – 7 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- freguesias
- Started on
- 1 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 13
- in a single hotspot: 18 MW
- Average daily power
- 135MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
7 Jul 2026 · 135 MW · 13
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
161 ha reached on 7 Jul2.1 %
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 land100 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Peneda / Gerês PTCON0001
- ZEPA Serra do Gerês PTZPE0002
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.
Complex of 3 fires according to ICNF
According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 189 ha (the satellite measured 161 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 Cabril 30 June 2026 · 21:28 37 ha · extinguished on 1 July 2026 · cause: negligence
- 2 Montalegre Cabril 1 July 2026 · 08:43 6 ha · extinguished on 1 July 2026 · cause: rekindling
- 3 Montalegre Cabril 6 July 2026 · 20:58 146 ha · extinguished on 8 July 2026 · cause: negligence
Total according to ICNF: 189 ha, 117 % of the 161 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.
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 9 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 178 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily 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 · 13Every 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?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (6 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 7 July 2026 (7 days from 1 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 6 July 2026 at 20:58 and declared extinguished on 8 July 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 161 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cabril (161 ha, 2.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Cabril and came within 2.4 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.
- 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.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 13 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 189 official ha against 161 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
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.