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Resende fire, 10 August 2016 Avões, Barrô, Penajoia

Out · last detection 13 Aug 2016, 03:40 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2016 in Avões, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 694 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 4 recorded fires was detected on 12 August 2016 at 05:05 and declared extinguished on 13 August 2016.

Number 46 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
694ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
10 Aug 2016 – 12 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
6
freguesias
Started on
10 Aug
2016
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
111MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

111213

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
60km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 17 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. Avões 502 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    296 ha reached on 11 Aug
    61 %
  2. Barrô 595 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    244 ha reached on 11 Aug
    24 %
  3. Penajoia 804 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town where it started
    80 ha
    7.9 %
  4. Penude 1,406 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town
    71 ha reached on 13 Aug
    5.5 %
  5. Lamego (Almacave e Sé) 12,073 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    3 ha reached on 13 Aug
    0.2 %
  6. Ferreiros de Avões 426 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    0 ha
    0.1 %

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 land64 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland30 %
  • Agricultural areas5.7 %
  • Mixed forest0.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 2 %

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, 4 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 770 ha (the satellite measured 694 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.

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)
10 Aug 25.1 °C 27 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug 26.0 °C 28 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Aug 28.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug after 28.8 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug after 28.7 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.3 mm High 31
15 Aug after 27.0 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug after 24.6 °C 38 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug after 22.7 °C 53 % 37 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2016
After · 19 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 13 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1062 µg/m³
8910111213141516
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 · 18Every 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 10 August 2016 and 12 August 2016: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 4 recorded fires was detected on 12 August 2016 at 05:05 and declared extinguished on 13 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 694 hectares (6.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Avões (296 ha, 61 %); Barrô (244 ha, 24 %); Penajoia (80 ha, 7.9 %); Penude (71 ha, 5.5 %); Lamego (Almacave e Sé) (3 ha, 0.2 %); Ferreiros de Avões (0 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Avões. 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 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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
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.