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Nelas fire, September 2024 Oliveira do Conde, Carregal do Sal, Canas de Senhorim

Out · last detection 19 Sept 2024, 02:18 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2024 in Oliveira do Conde, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,124 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 12 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 September 2024 at 11:53 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2024.

Number 5 in Portugal in 2024, of 69.

Burnt area
6,124ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
16 Sept 2024 – 19 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
12
freguesias
Started on
16 Sept
2024
Heat detections
565
in a single hotspot: 352 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
18.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Sept 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept19 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

16171819

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
65km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,003 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2022, 1 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Oliveira do Conde 2,798 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town
    2,053 ha reached on 17 Sept
    58 %
  2. Carregal do Sal 3,225 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    1,111 ha reached on 17 Sept
    31 %
  3. Canas de Senhorim 3,334 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town
    720 ha reached on 16 Sept
    28 %
  4. Nelas 4,636 inhabitants · 0.4 km from the town
    573 ha reached on 16 Sept
    26 %
  5. Lapa do Lobo 682 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    529 ha reached on 17 Sept
    72 %
  6. Póvoa de Midões 500 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    428 ha reached on 17 Sept
    45 %
  7. Cabanas de Viriato 1,457 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town
    409 ha reached on 17 Sept
    19 %
  8. Midões 1,574 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    219 ha reached on 17 Sept
    11 %
  9. União das Freguesias de Ervedal e Vila Franca da Beira 465 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town
    52 ha reached on 17 Sept
    1.8 %
  10. Tábua 3,682 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town
    25 ha reached on 18 Sept
    1.0 %
  11. Seixo da Beira 1,369 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the town where it started
    8 ha reached on 16 Sept
    0.2 %
  12. Parada 744 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town
    2 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland66 %
  • Agricultural areas14 %
  • Coniferous forest14 %
  • Mixed forest5.7 %
  • Other natural land0.6 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 22 %

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.

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 16 September 2024 and burned 6,031 ha (the satellite measured 6,124 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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Fogo de Nelas · Incêndio de Folhadal · Incêndio de Nelas e Carregal do Sal
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
  • Urgeiriça (Nelas) 16 September 2024 0 ha
  • Senhorim (Nelas) 16 September 2024 596 ha
  • Folhadal (Nelas) 16 September 2024 1,940 ha
Declared extinguished: 20 September 2024

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
14 Sept 28.8 °C 22 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Sept 30.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Sept 30.9 °C 11 % 61 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
17 Sept 27.9 °C 18 % 65 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
18 Sept 29.3 °C 27 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Sept 25.8 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
20 Sept after 24.5 °C 39 % 30 km/h 0.5 mm High 29
21 Sept after 22.9 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.6 mm High 24
22 Sept after 22.1 °C 48 % 30 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Sept 2024
After · 26 Sept 2024

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 19 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM10119 µg/m³
Optical depth1.14
1213141516171819202122
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 · 565Every 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 Nelas fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2024 and 19 September 2024: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 September 2024 at 11:53 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,124 hectares (61.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 12 municipalities: Oliveira do Conde (2,053 ha, 58 %); Carregal do Sal (1,111 ha, 31 %); Canas de Senhorim (720 ha, 28 %); Nelas (573 ha, 26 %); Lapa do Lobo (529 ha, 72 %); Póvoa de Midões (428 ha, 45 %); Cabanas de Viriato (409 ha, 19 %); Midões (219 ha, 11 %); União das Freguesias de Ervedal e Vila Franca da Beira (52 ha, 1.8 %); Tábua (25 ha, 1.0 %); Seixo da Beira (8 ha, 0.2 %); Parada (2 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Carregal do Sal. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very extreme.
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
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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.