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Penamacor fire, August 2023 Aldeia do Bispo, Águas e Aldeia de João Pires, Penamacor

Out · last measured on 24 Aug 2023

The fire started on 24 August 2023 in Penamacor, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 368 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 10 in Portugal in 2023, of 38.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
368ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
24 Aug 2023 – 24 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
24 Aug
2023
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

37°high
34km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 13.9 mm on 2 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Aldeia do Bispo, Águas e Aldeia de João Pires 882 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    184 ha
    5.6 %
  2. Penamacor 1,444 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started
    184 ha
    0.5 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Scrub and transitional woodland62 %
  • Agricultural areas28 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub9.8 %

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

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)
24 Aug 37.4 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 51
25 Aug after 34.8 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Aug after 27.7 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Aug after 25.9 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Aug after 28.0 °C 34 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Aug after 28.4 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Aug after 29.6 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Aug after 32.1 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Sept after 29.9 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Sept after 23.8 °C 57 % 30 km/h 13.9 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Aug 2023
After · 31 Aug 2023

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 24 August 2023 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1048 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
222324252627
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Penamacor fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 24 August 2023 and 24 August 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 368 hectares (3.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Aldeia do Bispo, Águas e Aldeia de João Pires (184 ha, 5.6 %); Penamacor (184 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.5 km of Aldeia do Bispo, Águas e Aldeia de João Pires. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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

Satellite cross-check

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

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.