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Nisa fire, August 2019 Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão, Arez e Amieira do Tejo

Out · last measured on 1 Aug 2019

The fire started on 1 August 2019 in Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 775 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 1 August 2019 at 14:31 and declared extinguished on 1 August 2019.

Number 4 in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
775ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
1 Aug 2019 – 1 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
1 Aug
2019
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

32°high
42km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.7 mm on 9 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão 2,997 inhabitants · 7.4 km from the town where it started
    748 ha
    4.9 %
  2. Arez e Amieira do Tejo 393 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the town
    27 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

  • Agricultural areas71 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland17 %
  • Broadleaved forest11 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub1.2 %

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.

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 1 August 2019 and burned 719 ha (the satellite measured 775 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)
1 Aug 31.7 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Aug after 33.5 °C 23 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Aug after 33.4 °C 27 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Aug after 30.5 °C 34 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Aug after 33.2 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug after 30.8 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Aug after 27.7 °C 42 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm High 24
8 Aug after 30.3 °C 41 % 47 km/h 0.5 mm High 32
9 Aug after 25.0 °C 48 % 38 km/h 4.7 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2019
After · 8 Aug 2019

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 3 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1017 µg/m³
30311234
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Nisa fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 August 2019 and 1 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 1 August 2019 at 14:31 and declared extinguished on 1 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 775 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão (748 ha, 4.9 %); Arez e Amieira do Tejo (27 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.5 km of Arez e Amieira do Tejo. 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 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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

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.