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Proença-a-Nova fire, September 2020 Estreito-Vilar Barroco, Oleiros-Amieira, União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2020, 13:09 UTC

The fire started on 13 September 2020 in Estreito-Vilar Barroco, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 15,536 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 8 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 13 September 2020 at 13:43 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2020.

The largest in Portugal in 2020, of 67.

Burnt area
15,536ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
8days
13 Sept 2020 – 20 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
8
freguesias
Started on
13 Sept
2020
Heat detections
383
in a single hotspot: 287 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
9.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Sept20 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

131415

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
61km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 22 Sept.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 107 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Estreito-Vilar Barroco 834 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    6,064 ha reached on 14 Sept
    65 %
  2. Oleiros-Amieira 2,081 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    4,384 ha reached on 14 Sept
    30 %
  3. União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira where it started
    3,027 ha reached on 13 Sept
    25 %
  4. Sarzedas 1,017 inhabitants · 7.7 km from the town
    1,388 ha reached on 14 Sept
    8.0 %
  5. Cambas 254 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town
    474 ha reached on 14 Sept
    9.8 %
  6. Sarnadas de São Simão 167 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town
    189 ha reached on 14 Sept
    6.1 %
  7. Isna 151 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the town
    28 ha reached on 15 Sept
    1.0 %
  8. Orvalho 638 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the town
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 woodland59 %
  • Coniferous forest33 %
  • Agricultural areas5.2 %
  • Other natural land1.4 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.2 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 13 September 2020 and burned 14,878 ha (the satellite measured 15,536 ha).

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 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Fogo de Proença-a-Nova · incêndio Proença-a-Nova / Oleiros / Castelo Branco

Sources

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)
13 Sept 33.0 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Sept 26.6 °C 38 % 48 km/h 1.6 mm High 22
15 Sept 26.2 °C 37 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Sept 26.5 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
17 Sept 24.1 °C 40 % 47 km/h 4.5 mm Low 8
18 Sept 18.7 °C 70 % 61 km/h 30.1 mm Very low 0
19 Sept 18.9 °C 72 % 46 km/h 8.3 mm Very low 0
20 Sept 21.8 °C 55 % 38 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 2
21 Sept after 21.7 °C 51 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
22 Sept after 22.0 °C 60 % 30 km/h 2.0 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Sept 2020
After · 27 Sept 2020

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 15 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1073 µg/m³
11121314151617181920212223
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 · 383Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Proença-a-Nova fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 13 September 2020 and 20 September 2020: 8 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 13 September 2020 at 13:43 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 15,536 hectares (155.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 8 municipalities: Estreito-Vilar Barroco (6,064 ha, 65 %); Oleiros-Amieira (4,384 ha, 30 %); União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira (3,027 ha, 25 %); Sarzedas (1,388 ha, 8.0 %); Cambas (474 ha, 9.8 %); Sarnadas de São Simão (189 ha, 6.1 %); Isna (28 ha, 1.0 %); Orvalho (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Estreito-Vilar Barroco. 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 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.