How long did the Ponte de Lima fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2016 to 13 August 2016 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2016 to 10 August 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 865 hectares (8.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 5 municipalities: Refóios do Lima (422 ha, 26 %); Calheiros (280 ha, 33 %); Labrujó, Rendufe e Vilar do Monte (95 ha, 8.4 %); Miranda (58 ha, 5.7 %); Bárrio e Cepões (11 ha, 1.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Refóios do Lima 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 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · 2016-08-08 → 2016-08-13

Ponte de Lima fire, 8 August 2016 Refóios do Lima, Calheiros, Labrujó, Rendufe e Vilar do Monte

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2016, 02:56 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Refóios do Lima, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 865 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Ponte de Lima since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 39 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cabração e Moreira do Lima · 2016 Nogueira, Meixedo e Vilar de Murteda · 2016 Arcos de Valdevez · 2016 Ponte da Barca · 2025

Burnt area: 865ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 8 Aug 2016 – 13 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit: 5; freguesias
Started on: 8 Aug; 2016
Heat detections: 68; in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 211MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug13 Aug

Play back 10 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

9 Aug 10 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

53km/h · peak gust

20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.6 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 0.5% of the area of London (8.6 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

Refóios do Lima 1,978 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started

422 ha reached on 9 Aug

26 %
Calheiros 930 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre

280 ha reached on 9 Aug

33 %
Labrujó, Rendufe e Vilar do Monte 315 inhabitants · fire reached the centre

95 ha reached on 9 Aug

8.4 %
Miranda 245 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre

58 ha reached on 9 Aug

5.7 %
Bárrio e Cepões 786 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre

11 ha reached on 9 Aug

1.1 %

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

Other natural land42 %
Scrub and transitional woodland36 %
Agricultural areas15 %
Mixed forest7.5 %

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

Official record

Several official records match this area

According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 619 ha (the satellite measured 865 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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

1 604 ha 2 15 ha

8 Aug11 Aug

rekindling

1 Ponte de Lima Calheiros 8 August 2016 · 16:53 604 ha · extinguished on 10 August 2016 · cause: rekindling
2 Ponte de Lima Calheiros 10 August 2016 · 13:48 15 ha · extinguished on 10 August 2016 · cause: rekindling

Total according to ICNF: 619 ha, 72 % of the 865 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)
8 Aug	33.5 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
9 Aug	28.0 °C	37 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
10 Aug	28.2 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
11 Aug	28.4 °C	22 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
12 Aug	29.5 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
13 Aug	27.4 °C	28 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Aug after	26.3 °C	41 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
15 Aug after	24.7 °C	47 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
16 Aug after	21.1 °C	48 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
17 Aug after	20.0 °C	68 %	34 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 14
18 Aug after	23.2 °C	37 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
19 Aug after	19.2 °C	65 %	32 km/h	5.6 mm	Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 1 Aug 2016

After · 20 Aug 2016

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 8 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³

Days over the guideline6 days

PM1096 µg/m³

WHO 15

678910111213

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 · 68Every 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 Ponte de Lima fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2016 to 13 August 2016 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2016 to 10 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 865 hectares (8.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 5 municipalities: Refóios do Lima (422 ha, 26 %); Calheiros (280 ha, 33 %); Labrujó, Rendufe e Vilar do Monte (95 ha, 8.4 %); Miranda (58 ha, 5.7 %); Bárrio e Cepões (11 ha, 1.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Refóios do Lima 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 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 August 2016 to 10 August 2016. 68 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 619 official ha against 865 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
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