Portalegre fire, August 2025 São João Baptista, Ribeira de Nisa e Carreiras, Santiago Maior
The fire started on 14 August 2025 in São João Baptista, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 884 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 August 2025 at 14:01 and declared extinguished on 16 August 2025.
Number 30 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 884ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 14 Aug 2025 – 15 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- freguesias
- Started on
- 14 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 48
- in a single hotspot: 86 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 549MW
- 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 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
560 ha reached on 14 Aug7.3 %
-
Ribeira de Nisa e Carreiras 1,731 inhabitants · 4.2 km from the centre231 ha reached on 14 Aug4.6 %
-
Santiago Maior 3.4 km from the centre94 ha reached on 15 Aug1.6 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub40 %
- Broadleaved forest29 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland16 %
- Agricultural areas15 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC São Mamede PTCON0007
Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to ICNF, this fire started on 14 August 2025 and burned 837 ha (the satellite measured 884 ha).
- Portalegre Carreiras 14 August 2025 · 14:01 837 ha · extinguished on 16 August 2025 · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Aug | 37.8 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 15 Aug | 36.8 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Aug after | 39.1 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Aug after | 36.3 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 18 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 24 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 19 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 20 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 25 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 21 Aug after | 29.7 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Aug after | 33.1 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.9 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Aug after | 33.1 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 17 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 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 · 48Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 775 haNisa Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São SimãoAugust 2019 · 1 day · 17 km away
- 1,037 haNisa Espírito Santo, Nossa Senhora da Graça e São SimãoJuly 2025 · 2 days · 24 km away
- 4,718 haCastelo Branco Santo André das Tojeiras23 July 2017 · 6 days · 36 km away
- 724 haAlter do Chão SedaAugust 2016 · 1 day · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Portalegre fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2025 and 15 August 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 August 2025 at 14:01 and declared extinguished on 16 August 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 884 hectares (8.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: São João Baptista (560 ha, 7.3 %); Ribeira de Nisa e Carreiras (231 ha, 4.6 %); Santiago Maior (94 ha, 1.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 3.4 km of the centre of Santiago Maior, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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 ›
- 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 48 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 837 official ha against 884 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.