Odemira fire, August 2021 Saboia, Alferce
The fire started on 18 August 2021 in Saboia, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 940 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 18 August 2021 at 13:14 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2021.
Number 3 in Portugal in 2021, of 30.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 940ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 18 Aug 2021 – 19 Aug 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 34
- in a single hotspot: 106 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 436MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 15 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.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
937 ha reached on 18 Aug6.0 %
-
Alferce 391 inhabitants · 5.1 km from the centre4 ha0.0 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland46 %
- Broadleaved forest29 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub13 %
- Agricultural areas12 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 27 %
- ZEPA + LIC Monchique PTCON0037
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 18 August 2021 and burned 988 ha (the satellite measured 940 ha).
- Odemira Sabóia 18 August 2021 · 13:14 988 ha · extinguished on 19 August 2021 · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 30.8 °C | 20 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Aug | 28.2 °C | 33 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 24 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 28 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Aug after | 32.8 °C | 28 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 49 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Aug after | 30.5 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 27 Aug after | 26.4 °C | 46 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 48 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Aug after | 25.9 °C | 44 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
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 18 August 2021 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 34Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 27,635 haMonchiqueAugust 2018 · 8 days · 13 km away
- 8,145 haOdemira São TeotónioAugust 2023 · 9 days · 17 km away
- 4,587 haMonchiqueSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 17 km away
- 1,879 haSilves São Marcos da SerraAugust 2016 · 1 day · 21 km away
- 1,322 haSilves São Marcos da SerraJuly 2022 · 2 days · 22 km away
- 2,121 haMonchique Mexilhoeira GrandeJuly 2021 · 2 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Odemira fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 18 August 2021 and 19 August 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 18 August 2021 at 13:14 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 940 hectares (9.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Saboia (937 ha, 6.0 %); Alferce (4 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Saboia and came within 4.3 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.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 34 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 988 official ha against 940 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.