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Murça fire, June 2026 Noura e Palheiros, Candedo

Out · last detection 30 Jun 2026, 14:23 UTC

The fire started on 30 June 2026 in Noura e Palheiros, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 139 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 30 June 2026 at 12:51 and declared extinguished on 30 June 2026.

Number 63 in Portugal in 2026, of 78.

Burnt area
139ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
30 Jun 2026 – 30 Jun 2026
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
30 Jun
2026
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Energy released
458MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jun30 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

30

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

  1. Noura e Palheiros 812 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town where it started
    100 ha reached on 30 Jun
    2.4 %
  2. Candedo 2.8 km from the town
    38 ha reached on 30 Jun
    1.3 %

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

  • Agricultural areas64 %
  • Coniferous forest19 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland9.2 %
  • Other natural land7.8 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 30 June 2026 and burned 136 ha (the satellite measured 139 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)
8 Jul after 21.6 °C 42 % 9 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
9 Jul after 35.8 °C 9 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
10 Jul after 35.2 °C 11 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jun 2026
After · 7 Jul 2026

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 30 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 4 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak4 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM108 µg/m³
Optical depth0.12
282930123
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 · 9Every 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 Murça fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 June 2026 and 30 June 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 30 June 2026 at 12:51 and declared extinguished on 30 June 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 139 hectares (1.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Noura e Palheiros (100 ha, 2.4 %); Candedo (38 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.0 km of Noura e Palheiros. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; 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

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.

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.

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.