How long did the Penalva do Castelo fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2024 and 20 September 2024: 5 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 16 September 2024 at 00:15 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 8,554 hectares (85.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 20 municipalities: Castelo de Penalva (1,964 ha, 73 %); Santiago de Cassurrães e Póvoa de Cervães (1,254 ha, 42 %); Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco (854 ha, 67 %); Mangualde, Mesquitela e Cunha Alta (746 ha, 16 %); Esmolfe (696 ha, 64 %); Freixiosa (588 ha, 81 %); Tavares (Chãs, Várzea e Travanca) (459 ha, 13 %); Abrunhosa-a-Velha (326 ha, 19 %); Sezures (317 ha, 15 %); Quintela de Azurara (313 ha, 33 %); Ínsua (248 ha, 26 %); União das Freguesias de Antas e Matela (230 ha, 13 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 · 2024-09-16 → 2024-09-20

Penalva do Castelo fire, September 2024 Castelo de Penalva, Santiago de Cassurrães e Póvoa de Cervães, Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco

Out · last detection 20 Sept 2024, 01:59 UTC

The fire started on 16 September 2024 in Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 8,554 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 20 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 16 September 2024 at 00:15 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2024.

Number 3 in Portugal in 2024, of 69.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Abrunhosa-a-Velha · 2017 Pombeiro da Beira · 2017 Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco · 2022 Santiago de Cassurrães e Póvoa de Cervães · 2017

Burnt area: 8,554ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 5days; 16 Sept 2024 – 20 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 20; freguesias
Started on: 16 Sept; 2024
Heat detections: 699; in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start: 66; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 1.8GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Sept20 Sept

Play back 20 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

16 Sept 17 Sept 18 Sept 19 Sept 20 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

30°high

50km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.0 mm on 24 Sept.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 36 ha in 2016, 2,143 ha in 2017, 150 ha in 2022, 28 ha in 2023.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 5.4% of the area of London (86 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

Castelo de Penalva 812 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

1,964 ha reached on 16 Sept

73 %
Santiago de Cassurrães e Póvoa de Cervães 1,218 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

1,254 ha reached on 17 Sept

42 %
Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco 251 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started

854 ha reached on 16 Sept

67 %
Mangualde, Mesquitela e Cunha Alta 9,858 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the centre

746 ha reached on 17 Sept

16 %
Esmolfe 382 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

696 ha reached on 16 Sept

64 %
Freixiosa 234 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

588 ha reached on 17 Sept

81 %
Tavares (Chãs, Várzea e Travanca) 1,280 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the centre

459 ha reached on 16 Sept

13 %
Abrunhosa-a-Velha 440 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

326 ha

19 %
Sezures 606 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre

317 ha reached on 16 Sept

15 %
Quintela de Azurara 506 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

313 ha reached on 17 Sept

33 %
Ínsua 2,046 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the centre

248 ha reached on 16 Sept

26 %
União das Freguesias de Antas e Matela 403 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre

230 ha reached on 16 Sept

13 %
Real 244 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

156 ha reached on 16 Sept

33 %
Rio de Moinhos 1.1 km from the centre

129 ha reached on 16 Sept

12 %
Lusinde 190 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

108 ha reached on 17 Sept

41 %
Cunha Baixa 801 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre

91 ha reached on 17 Sept

5.9 %
Trancozelos 247 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

68 ha reached on 17 Sept

13 %
Silvã de Cima 425 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre

16 ha reached on 17 Sept

2.2 %
Pindo 1,716 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the centre

4 ha reached on 16 Sept

0.2 %
Romãs, Decermilo e Vila Longa 1,062 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the centre

0 ha reached on 17 Sept

0.0 %

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 woodland33 %
Other natural land26 %
Agricultural areas23 %
Coniferous forest13 %
Mixed forest4.2 %
Artificial surfaces0.6 %
Broadleaved forest0.5 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area31 ha

Residents≈ 650

Inside the perimeter there were about 31 hectares of built-up land and about 650 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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

Complex of 3 fires according to ICNF

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 8,626 ha (the satellite measured 8,554 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 2,564 ha 2 6,053 ha 3 9 ha

15 Sept20 Sept

arson

1 Penalva do Castelo Esmolfe 15 September 2024 · 20:16 2,564 ha · extinguished on 16 September 2024 · cause: arson
2 Penalva do Castelo Antas 16 September 2024 · 00:15 6,053 ha · extinguished on 20 September 2024 · cause: arson
3 Sátão Silvã de Cima 18 September 2024 · 13:00 9 ha · extinguished on 18 September 2024 · cause: arson

Total according to ICNF: 8,626 ha, 101 % of the 8,554 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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as: Incêndio de Penalva do Castelo / Mangualde · Fogo de Vila Cova do Covelo

Sources

Houve menos incêndios rurais em 2024, mas a área ardida foi a terceira maior — CNN Portugal, 28 October 2024
Incêndios: Penalva do Castelo com prejuízos de cerca de 3 ME no setor agrícola — Agroportal, 11 October 2024
Chamas destruíram oito mil hectares em Penalva do Castelo — SAPO (Lusa), 20 September 2024

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	30.4 °C	9 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
17 Sept	26.4 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
18 Sept	28.1 °C	23 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
19 Sept	25.4 °C	37 %	35 km/h	0.9 mm	High 27
20 Sept	23.7 °C	42 %	31 km/h	3.4 mm	Low 9
21 Sept after	22.0 °C	50 %	32 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 12
22 Sept after	21.9 °C	46 %	30 km/h	0.9 mm	Moderate 14
23 Sept after	22.4 °C	35 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
24 Sept after	16.5 °C	81 %	47 km/h	12.0 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Sept 2024

After · 27 Sept 2024

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 19 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 182 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 90: 6.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak182 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM10194 µg/m³

Optical depth2.75

WHO 15

14151617181920212223

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 · 699Every 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 Penalva do Castelo fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 16 September 2024 and 20 September 2024: 5 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 16 September 2024 at 00:15 and declared extinguished on 20 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 8,554 hectares (85.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 20 municipalities: Castelo de Penalva (1,964 ha, 73 %); Santiago de Cassurrães e Póvoa de Cervães (1,254 ha, 42 %); Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco (854 ha, 67 %); Mangualde, Mesquitela e Cunha Alta (746 ha, 16 %); Esmolfe (696 ha, 64 %); Freixiosa (588 ha, 81 %); Tavares (Chãs, Várzea e Travanca) (459 ha, 13 %); Abrunhosa-a-Velha (326 ha, 19 %); Sezures (317 ha, 15 %); Quintela de Azurara (313 ha, 33 %); Ínsua (248 ha, 26 %); União das Freguesias de Antas e Matela (230 ha, 13 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Vila Cova do Covelo/Mareco and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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 · 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.

Report an error

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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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 699 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 8,626 official ha against 8,554 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
Checked against news and agencies: 3 confirmed sources.
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 2025, 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