How long did the Sabugal fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2022 and 28 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 26 August 2022 at 17:11 and declared extinguished on 27 August 2022.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 331 hectares (3.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sortelha (197 ha, 5.0 %); Casteleiro (134 ha, 3.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Sortelha and came within 0.7 km of its centre. 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 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2022-08-27 → 2022-08-28

Sabugal fire, August 2022 Sortelha, Casteleiro

Out · last detection 28 Aug 2022, 14:00 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2022 in Sortelha, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 331 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 26 August 2022 at 17:11 and declared extinguished on 27 August 2022.

It is the 10th largest in Sabugal since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 39 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sabugal · 2025 Serra da Estrela · 2022 Guarda · 2017 Guarda · 2026

Burnt area: 331ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 27 Aug 2022 – 28 Aug 2022
Municipalities hit: 2; freguesias
Started on: 27 Aug; 2022
Heat detections: 19; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 62MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug28 Aug

Play back 28 Aug 2022

How it evolved, day by day

27 Aug 28 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

41km/h · peak gust

26%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 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

Sortelha 320 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre where it started

197 ha reached on 27 Aug

5.0 %
Casteleiro 311 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre

134 ha reached on 27 Aug

3.0 %

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 woodland56 %
Other natural land35 %
Agricultural areas8.8 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area0.21 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.21 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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 26 August 2022 and burned 393 ha (the satellite measured 331 ha).

Sabugal Sortelha 26 August 2022 · 17:11 393 ha · extinguished on 27 August 2022 · cause: natural (lightning)

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)
27 Aug	30.6 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Aug	29.9 °C	36 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
29 Aug after	28.8 °C	25 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 38
30 Aug after	28.7 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Aug after	27.8 °C	27 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
1 Sept after	28.1 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Sept after	25.2 °C	36 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Sept after	25.8 °C	25 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
4 Sept after	24.8 °C	34 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
5 Sept after	23.1 °C	45 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	High 30
6 Sept after	24.4 °C	34 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
7 Sept after	23.5 °C	41 %	34 km/h	0.3 mm	High 27

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Aug 2022

After · 4 Sept 2022

Before After

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 28 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1025 µg/m³

Optical depth0.26

WHO 15

25262728293031

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 · 19Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sabugal fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2022 and 28 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 26 August 2022 at 17:11 and declared extinguished on 27 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 331 hectares (3.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sortelha (197 ha, 5.0 %); Casteleiro (134 ha, 3.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Sortelha and came within 0.7 km of its centre. 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 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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.

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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 19 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 393 official ha against 331 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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. 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.

Where it burned