How long did the Penafiel fire last?

The official perimeter only gives the start date (29 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 30 July 2026 (2 days from 29 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate. According to ICNF, it was detected on 29 July 2026 at 13:04 and declared extinguished on 29 July 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Abragão (89 ha, 9.4 %); Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles (26 ha, 1.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Abragão and came within 1.1 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 26.7 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.

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 · 2026-07-29 → 2026-07-30

Penafiel fire, 29 July 2026 Abragão, Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles

Out · last detection 30 Jul 2026, 13:23 UTC

The fire started on 29 July 2026 in Abragão, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 115 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 29 July 2026 at 13:04 and declared extinguished on 29 July 2026.

Number 80 in Portugal in 2026, of 86.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Duas Igrejas · 2016 Aguiar de Sousa · 2024 União das Freguesias de Campelo e Ovil e Loivos do Monte · 2024 Arouca · 2025

Burnt area: 115ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: ≈ 2days; 29 Jul 2026 – 30 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; freguesias
Started on: 29 Jul; 2026
Heat detections: 9; in a single hotspot: 144 MW
Danger at start: 19; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 244MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jul30 Jul

Play back 30 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

29 Jul 30 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

27°high

33km/h · peak gust

54%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 3 Aug.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 111 ha in 2016, 19 ha in 2022, 7 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 112 ha that had burned before.

111 ha Duas Igrejas fire, August 2016 752 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Abragão 2,311 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the centre where it started

89 ha reached on 29 Jul

9.4 %
Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles 3,461 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre

26 ha reached on 29 Jul

1.4 %

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 woodland97 %
Agricultural areas2.6 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 29 July 2026 and burned 118 ha (the satellite measured 115 ha).

Penafiel Abragão 29 July 2026 · 13:04 118 ha · extinguished on 29 July 2026 · 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)
29 Jul	26.7 °C	55 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
30 Jul	25.5 °C	54 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
31 Jul after	27.4 °C	50 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
1 Aug after	28.6 °C	47 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
2 Aug after	25.9 °C	54 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
3 Aug after	25.4 °C	60 %	35 km/h	1.4 mm	Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 22 Jul 2026

After · 6 Aug 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 30 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 164 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak164 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM10176 µg/m³

Optical depth0.57

WHO 15

272829303112

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 · 9Every 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?: The official perimeter only gives the start date (29 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 30 July 2026 (2 days from 29 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate. According to ICNF, it was detected on 29 July 2026 at 13:04 and declared extinguished on 29 July 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Abragão (89 ha, 9.4 %); Vila Boa de Quires e Maureles (26 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Abragão and came within 1.1 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 26.7 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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

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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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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. 9 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 118 official ha against 115 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