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Ribeira fire, August 2016 Ribeira, Serdedelo, Gondufe

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2016, 13:17 UTC

The fire started on 7 August 2016 in Ribeira, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 234 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Ponte de Lima since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 99 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
234ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
7 Aug 2016 – 8 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
7 Aug
2016
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
51MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Aug8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

8

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
41km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Ribeira 1,846 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town where it started
    151 ha reached on 8 Aug
    17 %
  2. Serdedelo 429 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town
    38 ha
    5.8 %
  3. Gondufe 421 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town
    26 ha
    4.7 %
  4. Gemieira 602 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town
    19 ha reached on 8 Aug
    4.4 %

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 land74 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland17 %
  • Agricultural areas8.6 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 7 August 2016 and burned 125 ha (the satellite measured 234 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)
7 Aug 37.5 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Aug 36.1 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 29.1 °C 40 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug after 29.7 °C 23 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Aug after 30.0 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug after 31.0 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Aug after 28.3 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Aug after 26.5 °C 46 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
15 Aug after 25.3 °C 48 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
16 Aug after 22.8 °C 48 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
17 Aug after 22.5 °C 66 % 34 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 14
18 Aug after 24.1 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Jul 2016
After · 15 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 8 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1096 µg/m³
567891011
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 · 9Every 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 Ribeira fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 7 August 2016 and 8 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 234 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Ribeira (151 ha, 17 %); Serdedelo (38 ha, 5.8 %); Gondufe (26 ha, 4.7 %); Gemieira (19 ha, 4.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.6 km of Serdedelo. 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 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.