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Nisa fire, July 2025 Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão, Santana

Out · last detection 30 Jul 2025, 02:33 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2025 in Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,037 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 29 July 2025 at 12:32 and declared extinguished on 31 July 2025.

Number 27 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Burnt area
1,037ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
29 Jul 2025 – 30 Jul 2025
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
29 Jul
2025
Heat detections
100
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jul 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul30 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2930

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
50km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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 · 0.8 km from the town where it started
    1,038 ha reached on 29 Jul
    6.8 %
  2. Santana 277 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the town
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest30 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub24 %
  • Agricultural areas18 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 43 %

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 29 July 2025 and burned 1,013 ha (the satellite measured 1,037 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)
29 Jul 36.2 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
30 Jul 37.1 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
31 Jul after 38.0 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Aug after 36.8 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Aug after 37.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Aug after 40.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Aug after 37.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Aug after 38.6 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Aug after 36.9 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Aug after 35.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Aug after 35.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Aug after 38.6 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jul 2025
After · 6 Aug 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 1 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1035 µg/m³
Optical depth0.53
272829303112
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 · 100Every 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 Nisa fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 29 July 2025 and 30 July 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 29 July 2025 at 12:32 and declared extinguished on 31 July 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,037 hectares (10.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão (1,038 ha, 6.8 %); Santana (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.8 km of Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São Simão. 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 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, class 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.