Proença-a-Nova fire, 14 September 2026 União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira, Montes da Senhora, Sarzedas
The fire started on 14 September 2026 in União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,031 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 September 2026 at 16:05 and declared extinguished on 16 September 2026.
Number 11 in Portugal in 2026, of 78.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,031ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 9days
- 14 Sept 2026 – 22 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- freguesias
- Started on
- 14 Sept
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 50
- in a single hotspot: 107 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 326MW
- 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 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12 ha in 2020, 19 ha in 2023.
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
-
União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira where it started972 ha8.2 %
-
Montes da Senhora 1,641 inhabitants · 4.2 km from the centre38 ha1.0 %
-
Sarzedas 1,017 inhabitants · 6.9 km from the centre23 ha0.1 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland91 %
- Agricultural areas6.6 %
- Other natural land2.2 %
- Coniferous forest0.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.19 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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
According to ICNF, this fire started on 14 September 2026 and burned 1,018 ha (the satellite measured 1,031 ha).
- Proença-a-Nova Alvito da Beira 14 September 2026 · 16:05 1,018 ha · extinguished on 16 September 2026 · 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 Sept | 37.1 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Sept | 35.6 °C | 11 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 16 Sept | 29.6 °C | 31 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Sept | 28.5 °C | 16 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 18 Sept | 29.5 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Sept | 31.2 °C | 24 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Sept | 32.2 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
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 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 216 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 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 · 50Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,536 haProença-a-Nova União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da BeiraSeptember 2020 · 8 days · 10 km away
- 8,478 haCambasAugust 2017 · 5 days · 16 km away
- 36,849 haSertã Várzea dos Cavaleiros23 July 2017 · 6 days · 20 km away
- 9,924 haVila de Rei CardigosJuly 2019 · 3 days · 28 km away
- 34,844 haOleiros MadeirãOctober 2017 · 8 days · 29 km away
- 68,190 haArganil Sobral de São MiguelAugust 2025 · 15 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Proença-a-Nova fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (14 September 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 22 September 2026 (9 days from 14 September 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 September 2026 at 16:05 and declared extinguished on 16 September 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,031 hectares (10.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: União das freguesias de Sobreira Formosa e Alvito da Beira (972 ha, 8.2 %); Montes da Senhora (38 ha, 1.0 %); Sarzedas (23 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 4.2 km of the centre of Montes da Senhora, 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 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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 ›
- 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.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 50 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 1,018 official ha against 1,031 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.
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.