Santarém fire, July 2025 Alcanede
The fire started on 29 July 2025 in Alcanede, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 252 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to ICNF, it was detected on 29 July 2025 at 13:12 and declared extinguished on 30 July 2025.
Number 54 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 252ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 29 Jul 2025 – 30 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- freguesias
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 8
- in a single hotspot: 82 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 424MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
29 Jul 2025 · 424 MW · 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
It had gone 17 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
-
252 ha reached on 29 Jul2.4 %
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
- Broadleaved forest39 %
- Agricultural areas32 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
- Mixed forest1.2 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to ICNF, this fire started on 29 July 2025 and burned 267 ha (the satellite measured 252 ha).
- Santarém Alcanede 29 July 2025 · 13:12 267 ha · extinguished on 30 July 2025 · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jul | 37.0 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Jul | 37.5 °C | 18 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 31 Jul after | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Aug after | 30.4 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 2 Aug after | 32.7 °C | 35 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Aug after | 36.7 °C | 29 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Aug after | 35.3 °C | 35 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Aug after | 36.2 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Aug after | 31.2 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 43 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 8 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 48 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 1 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 8Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 585 haPorto de Mós Arrimal e MendigaAugust 2020 · 2 days · 10 km away
- 1,032 haPorto de Mós Serro VentosoSeptember 2020 · 3 days · 13 km away
- 618 haCaldas da Rainha LandalAugust 2022 · 4 days · 20 km away
- 386 haCadaval União das Freguesias de Lamas e CercalJuly 2023 · 5 days · 30 km away
- 456 haLeiria Santa Catarina da Serra e Chainça5 August 2023 · 2 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Santarém fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 July 2025 to 30 July 2025 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 July 2025 to 29 July 2025. According to ICNF, it was detected on 29 July 2025 at 13:12 and declared extinguished on 30 July 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 252 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Alcanede (252 ha, 2.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Alcanede and came within 1.0 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 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
Satellite cross-check
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 July 2025 to 29 July 2025. 8 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 267 official ha against 252 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.