Penafiel fire, September 2024 Penafiel, Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles, Croca
The fire started on 14 September 2024 in Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 573 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 7 recorded fires was detected on 16 September 2024 at 15:08 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2024.
It is the 6th largest in Marco de Canaveses since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 31 in Portugal in 2024, of 69.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 573ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 14 Sept 2024 – 18 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- freguesias
- Started on
- 14 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 49
- in a single hotspot: 64 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 218MW
- 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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.9 mm on 20 Sept.
This area had burned before
55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 191 ha in 2016, 26 ha in 2021, 152 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 316 ha that had burned before.
- 150 ha Penafiel fire, July 2022 259 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 117 ha Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles fire, August 2016 354 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 74 ha Duas Igrejas fire, August 2016 752 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Penafiel 15,677 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre272 ha reached on 16 Sept12 %
-
186 ha reached on 14 Sept9.6 %
-
Croca 1,792 inhabitants · 5.6 km from the centre83 ha reached on 14 Sept13 %
-
Duas Igrejas 1.2 km from the centre32 ha reached on 17 Sept3.9 %
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 woodland92 %
- Agricultural areas4.2 %
- Other natural land3.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Complex of 7 fires according to ICNF
According to ICNF, 7 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 689 ha (the satellite measured 573 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
1 122 ha 2 106 ha 3 342 ha 4 9 ha 5 10 ha 6 37 ha 7 63 ha- 1 Marco de Canaveses Vila Boa de Quires 14 September 2024 · 11:29 122 ha · extinguished on 14 September 2024 · cause: unknown
- 2 Marco de Canaveses Vila Boa de Quires 16 September 2024 · 13:11 106 ha · extinguished on 16 September 2024 · cause: unknown
- 3 Penafiel Croca 16 September 2024 · 15:08 342 ha · extinguished on 17 September 2024 · cause: unknown
- 4 Penafiel São Martinho Recezinhos 16 September 2024 · 20:47 9 ha · extinguished on 17 September 2024 · cause: unknown
- 5 Penafiel Santa Marta 17 September 2024 · 05:21 10 ha · extinguished on 17 September 2024 · cause: unknown
- 6 Penafiel Santa Marta 17 September 2024 · 12:52 37 ha · extinguished on 18 September 2024 · cause: unknown
- 7 Penafiel Abragão 17 September 2024 · 14:51 63 ha · extinguished on 18 September 2024 · cause: unknown
Total according to ICNF: 689 ha, 120 % of the 573 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Sept | 30.2 °C | 13 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 17 Sept | 25.8 °C | 21 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Sept | 25.4 °C | 34 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 19 Sept after | 22.6 °C | 55 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 20 Sept after | 19.7 °C | 69 % | 27 km/h | 9.9 mm | Very low 0 |
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 20 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 271 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 131: 8.7 times the WHO daily 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 · 49Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,706 haAguiar de SousaSeptember 2024 · 4 days · 13 km away
- 6,845 haUnião das Freguesias de Campelo e Ovil e Loivos do MonteSeptember 2024 · 3 days · 17 km away
- 6,555 haArouca RealJuly 2025 · 5 days · 24 km away
- 8,253 haChaveOctober 2017 · 5 days · 27 km away
- 30,331 haArouca Santa EuláliaAugust 2016 · 9 days · 38 km away
- 35,523 haCastro Daire União das Freguesias de Picão e ErmidaSeptember 2024 · 10 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Penafiel fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2024 to 18 September 2024 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 September 2024 to 18 September 2024. According to ICNF, the largest of the 7 recorded fires was detected on 16 September 2024 at 15:08 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 573 hectares (5.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Penafiel (272 ha, 12 %); Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles (186 ha, 9.6 %); Croca (83 ha, 13 %); Duas Igrejas (32 ha, 3.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles and came within 1.0 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 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 September 2024 to 18 September 2024. 49 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 689 official ha against 573 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.