How long did the Ovadas e Panchora fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (5 April 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 6 April 2026 (3 days from 4 April 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 296 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ovadas e Panchora (269 ha, 11 %); Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires (27 ha, 0.7 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Ovadas e Panchora and came within 0.9 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 21.4 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.

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 · 2026-04-04 → 2026-04-06

Ovadas e Panchora fire, April 2026 Ovadas e Panchora, Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires

Out · last detection 6 Apr 2026, 12:33 UTC

The fire started on 4 April 2026 in Ovadas e Panchora, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 296 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Resende since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 29 in Portugal in 2026, of 86.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Resende · 2017 Resende · 2016 Cinfães · 2017 Castro Daire · 2024

Burnt area: 296ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: ≈ 3days; 4 Apr 2026 – 6 Apr 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; freguesias
Started on: 4 Apr; 2026
Heat detections: 20; in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start: 9; Low · FWI index
Average daily power: 206MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Apr6 Apr

Play back 6 Apr 2026

How it evolved, day by day

5 Apr 6 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

21°high

27km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.9 mm on 6 Apr.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 96 ha in 2016, 123 ha in 2017, 3 ha in 2022, 22 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 183 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Ovadas e Panchora 283 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the centre where it started

269 ha reached on 5 Apr

11 %
Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires 517 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the centre

27 ha reached on 5 Apr

0.7 %

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

Other natural land84 %
Broadleaved forest12 %
Scrub and transitional woodland3.4 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

LIC Serra de Montemuro PTCON0025

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

Several official records match this area

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 175 ha (the satellite measured 296 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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 18 ha 2 5 ha 3 152 ha

3 Apr6 Apr

negligence

1 Cinfães Ramires 3 April 2026 · 15:08 18 ha · extinguished on 3 April 2026 · cause: negligence
2 Cinfães Ramires 4 April 2026 · 13:55 5 ha · extinguished on 4 April 2026 · cause: negligence
3 Cinfães Ramires 5 April 2026 · 13:45 152 ha · extinguished on 5 April 2026 · cause: negligence

Total according to ICNF: 175 ha, 59 % of the 296 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)
5 Apr	21.4 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 9
6 Apr	21.8 °C	21 %	56 km/h	3.9 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Mar 2026

After · 13 Apr 2026

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 8 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1036 µg/m³

Optical depth0.53

WHO 15

345678

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 · 20Every 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 Ovadas e Panchora fire last?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (5 April 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 6 April 2026 (3 days from 4 April 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 296 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ovadas e Panchora (269 ha, 11 %); Alhões, Bustelo, Gralheira e Ramires (27 ha, 0.7 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Ovadas e Panchora and came within 0.9 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 21.4 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, class Low.
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 ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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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.
The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 20 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 175 official ha against 296 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
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