How long did the Penafiel fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 20 August 2022 and 20 August 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 20 August 2022 at 03:30 and declared extinguished on 20 August 2022.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 152 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Canelas (91 ha, 7.7 %); Rio Mau (42 ha, 6.7 %); Sebolido (20 ha, 3.9 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Canelas and came within 0.5 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 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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.

PT · Portugal · 2022-08-20 → 2022-08-20

Penafiel fire, August 2022 Canelas, Rio Mau, Sebolido

Out · last detection 20 Aug 2022, 03:28 UTC

The fire started on 20 August 2022 in Canelas, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 152 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 20 August 2022 at 03:30 and declared extinguished on 20 August 2022.

Number 83 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Penafiel · 2017 Aguiar de Sousa · 2024 Chave · 2017 Arouca · 2025

Burnt area: 152ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 20 Aug 2022 – 20 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit: 3; freguesias
Started on: 20 Aug; 2022
Heat detections: 6; in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start: 31; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 187MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Aug20 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

20 Aug 2022 · 187 MW · 6

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

36km/h · peak gust

29%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 26 Aug.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11 ha in 2017.

11 ha Penafiel fire, September 2017 554 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Canelas 0.5 km from the centre where it started

91 ha reached on 20 Aug

7.7 %
Rio Mau 1,340 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre

42 ha reached on 20 Aug

6.7 %
Sebolido 823 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre

20 ha reached on 20 Aug

3.9 %

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 woodland66 %
Other natural land34 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 20 August 2022 and burned 154 ha (the satellite measured 152 ha).

Penafiel Canelas 20 August 2022 · 03:30 154 ha · extinguished on 20 August 2022 · cause: unknown

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)
20 Aug	31.3 °C	29 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
21 Aug after	27.8 °C	41 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
22 Aug after	32.7 °C	38 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
23 Aug after	34.0 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
24 Aug after	26.7 °C	61 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
25 Aug after	31.0 °C	44 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
26 Aug after	31.7 °C	41 %	31 km/h	1.1 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Aug 2022

After · 27 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 23 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1027 µg/m³

Optical depth0.57

WHO 15

181920212223

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 · 6Every 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 Penafiel fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 20 August 2022 and 20 August 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 20 August 2022 at 03:30 and declared extinguished on 20 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 152 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Canelas (91 ha, 7.7 %); Rio Mau (42 ha, 6.7 %); Sebolido (20 ha, 3.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Canelas and came within 0.5 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 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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 ›

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.

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How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 6 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 154 official ha against 152 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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