How long did the Ourém fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2022 to 22 August 2022 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2022 to 20 August 2022. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 19 August 2022 at 14:40 and declared extinguished on 22 August 2022.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,288 hectares (22.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 5 municipalities: Urqueira (1,617 ha, 52 %); União das Freguesias de Gondemaria e Olival (356 ha, 12 %); Espite (302 ha, 15 %); Caxarias (14 ha, 0.8 %); Uni3O Das Freguesias De Santiago E Sco Sim O De (2 ha, 0.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Urqueira. 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 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2022-08-19 → 2022-08-22

Ourém fire, 19 August 2022 Urqueira, União das Freguesias de Gondemaria e Olival, Espite

Out · last detection 21 Aug 2022, 14:32 UTC

The fire started on 19 August 2022 in União das Freguesias de Gondemaria e Olival, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,288 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 19 August 2022 at 14:40 and declared extinguished on 22 August 2022.

Number 9 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Leiria · 2022 Ansião · 2022 Soure · 2016 Pinhal de Leiria · 2017

Burnt area: 2,288ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 19 Aug 2022 – 22 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit: 5; freguesias
Started on: 19 Aug; 2022
Heat detections: 90; in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start: 59; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 402MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Aug22 Aug

Play back 21 Aug 2022

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 21 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

35°high

52km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (23 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Urqueira 1,401 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town

1,617 ha reached on 20 Aug

52 %
União das Freguesias de Gondemaria e Olival 1,995 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town where it started

356 ha reached on 20 Aug

12 %
Espite 986 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town

302 ha reached on 20 Aug

15 %
Caxarias 2,136 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town

14 ha reached on 20 Aug

0.8 %
Uni3O Das Freguesias De Santiago E Sco Sim O De 1,382 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town

2 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 forest39 %
Scrub and transitional woodland21 %
Mixed forest21 %
Agricultural areas15 %
Coniferous forest3.8 %
Artificial surfaces0.6 %

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

Official record

Complex of 2 fires according to ICNF

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 2,282 ha (the satellite measured 2,288 ha).

ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 8 ha 2 2,274 ha

19 Aug22 Aug

arson

1 Ourém Olival 19 August 2022 · 14:36 8 ha · extinguished on 19 August 2022 · cause: arson
2 Ourém Espite 19 August 2022 · 14:40 2,274 ha · extinguished on 22 August 2022 · cause: arson

Total according to ICNF: 2,282 ha, 100 % of the 2,288 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
19 Aug	35.4 °C	16 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
20 Aug	32.3 °C	34 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Aug	26.3 °C	40 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
22 Aug	32.4 °C	34 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Aug after	34.1 °C	31 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
24 Aug after	24.8 °C	61 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
25 Aug after	27.2 °C	53 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
26 Aug after	28.4 °C	47 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Aug after	31.1 °C	30 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
28 Aug after	30.5 °C	40 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
29 Aug after	27.2 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Aug after	25.5 °C	44 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
31 Aug after	26.0 °C	45 %	45 km/h	0.5 mm	High 34

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Aug 2022

After · 29 Aug 2022

Before After

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 20 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³

Days over the guideline1 day

PM1039 µg/m³

Optical depth0.43

WHO 15

1718192021222324

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 · 90Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ourém fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 August 2022 to 22 August 2022 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 August 2022 to 20 August 2022. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 19 August 2022 at 14:40 and declared extinguished on 22 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,288 hectares (22.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 5 municipalities: Urqueira (1,617 ha, 52 %); União das Freguesias de Gondemaria e Olival (356 ha, 12 %); Espite (302 ha, 15 %); Caxarias (14 ha, 0.8 %); Uni3O Das Freguesias De Santiago E Sco Sim O De (2 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Urqueira. 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 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 August 2022 to 20 August 2022. 90 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 2,282 official ha against 2,288 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned