Skip to content
worldfires
PT · Portugal · –

Ribeira de Pena fire, July 2022 Codessoso, Curros e Fiães do Tâmega, Canedo

Out · last detection 11 Jul 2022, 02:37 UTC

The fire started on 10 July 2022 in Canedo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 284 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 freguesias. According to ICNF, it was detected on 10 July 2022 at 15:15 and declared extinguished on 12 July 2022.

Number 45 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
284ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
10 Jul 2022 – 11 Jul 2022
Freguesias hit
2
freguesias
Started on
10 Jul
2022
Heat detections
18
in a single hotspot: 132 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Average daily power
316MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jul11 Jul
11 Jul 2022

How it evolved, day by day

10 Jul 2022 · 492 MW · 6 11 Jul 2022 · 140 MW · 12
10 Jul 11 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
32km/h · peak gust
26%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 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 freguesia

  1. Codessoso, Curros e Fiães do Tâmega 257 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre
    237 ha reached on 11 Jul
    6.8 %
  2. Canedo 275 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre where it started
    47 ha reached on 10 Jul
    1.3 %

Burnt area inside each freguesia, 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 woodland86 %
  • Other natural land10 %
  • Mixed forest4.2 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 10 July 2022 and burned 293 ha (the satellite measured 284 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 Jul 32.4 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Jul 31.1 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
12 Jul after 36.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
13 Jul after 35.2 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
14 Jul after 38.1 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.8 mm High 32
15 Jul after 33.8 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
16 Jul after 32.2 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Jul after 34.0 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jul after 27.7 °C 40 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jul after 22.8 °C 51 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 28
20 Jul after 29.5 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
21 Jul after 29.7 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 25.5, a minimum humidity of 26% and 4 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 39.

FWI at the start 25.5
Minimum humidity 26 %
Days without rain 4
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Murça fire, June 2026
139 ha 1 day FWI 27.0 Min. humidity 26 % 37 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
320 ha
median area
21 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 27 of 39 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (284 ha against a median of 320 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

In 12 of 39, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.5 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 11 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 27 of 39, with a median of 5.5 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jul 2022
After · 18 Jul 2022

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 11 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 33 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak33 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1039 µg/m³
8 Jul10 Jul12 Jul14 Jul
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 Ribeira de Pena fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 10 July 2022 and 11 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 10 July 2022 at 15:15 and declared extinguished on 12 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 284 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which freguesias burned?
The fire entered 2 freguesias: Codessoso, Curros e Fiães do Tâmega (237 ha, 6.8 %); Canedo (47 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.4 km of the centre of Codessoso, Curros e Fiães do Tâmega, 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 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 39. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 320 ha; 21 % went past 1,000 ha. In 12 of 39, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 5.5 mm.

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

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night 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
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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 18 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 293 official ha against 284 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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. Freguesia boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM3 (CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication). The area per freguesia is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.