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Resende fire, 9 August 2016 Cárquere, Ovadas e Panchora, São Cipriano

Out · last detection 11 Aug 2016, 14:00 UTC

The fire started on 9 August 2016 in Cárquere, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 736 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Resende since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 44 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
736ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
9 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
9 Aug
2016
Heat detections
40
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1011

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
64km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.3 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cárquere 746 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town where it started
    282 ha reached on 10 Aug
    38 %
  2. Ovadas e Panchora 283 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    185 ha reached on 10 Aug
    7.8 %
  3. São Cipriano 670 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town
    158 ha reached on 10 Aug
    24 %
  4. Felgueiras e Feirão 364 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town
    66 ha reached on 11 Aug
    5.0 %
  5. Anreade e São Romão de Arego 1,348 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    45 ha
    4.6 %

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

  • Other natural land42 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland33 %
  • Agricultural areas25 %
  • Coniferous forest0.6 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 92 %

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, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 579 ha (the satellite measured 736 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
9 Aug 28.4 °C 31 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Aug 25.4 °C 28 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Aug 26.3 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Aug after 28.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug after 28.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug after 27.4 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
15 Aug after 25.6 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
16 Aug after 22.9 °C 45 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
17 Aug after 21.4 °C 60 % 37 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 13
18 Aug after 23.6 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Aug after 20.1 °C 67 % 39 km/h 2.3 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Aug 2016
After · 18 Aug 2016

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 14 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1066 µg/m³
7891011121314
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 · 40Every 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 Resende fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 736 hectares (7.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Cárquere (282 ha, 38 %); Ovadas e Panchora (185 ha, 7.8 %); São Cipriano (158 ha, 24 %); Felgueiras e Feirão (66 ha, 5.0 %); Anreade e São Romão de Arego (45 ha, 4.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Cárquere. 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 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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

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
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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.

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.