Skip to content
worldfires
en
PT · Portugal · →

Santo Tirso fire, August 2016 Monte Córdova, Santo Tirso, Couto (Santa Cristina e São Miguel) e Burgães, Rebordões

Out · last detection 9 Aug 2016, 03:15 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Santo Tirso, Couto (Santa Cristina e São Miguel) e Burgães, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 154 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 135 in Portugal in 2016, of 180.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Aguiar de Sousa · 2024Celorico de Basto · 2024Vieira do Minho · 2016Barcelos · 2016

Burnt area
154ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
8 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
8 Aug
2016
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Average daily power
53MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug11 Aug
9 Aug 2016

How it evolved, day by day

8 Aug 2016 · 99 MW · 4 9 Aug 2016 · 7 MW · 2
8 Aug 9 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

34°high
37km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 19 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. Monte Córdova 3,850 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the centre
    51 ha
    3.0 %
  2. Santo Tirso, Couto (Santa Cristina e São Miguel) e Burgães 20,595 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the centre where it started
    50 ha reached on 8 Aug
    2.0 %
  3. Rebordões 3,130 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre
    30 ha reached on 8 Aug
    7.0 %
  4. Negrelos (São Mamede) 3,755 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre
    24 ha
    3.9 %

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 woodland80 %
  • Mixed forest19 %
  • Agricultural areas0.7 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area0.36 ha
Residents≈ 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.36 hectares of built-up land and about 20 residents (GHSL 2015, 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

Several official records match this area

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 201 ha (the satellite measured 154 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 22 ha 2 170 ha 3 8 ha
7 Aug11 Aug
cause unknown or not published
  1. 1 Santo Tirso Burgães 7 August 2016 · 14:47 22 ha · extinguished on 7 August 2016 · cause: unknown
  2. 2 Santo Tirso Rebordões 8 August 2016 · 12:25 170 ha · extinguished on 9 August 2016 · cause: unknown
  3. 3 Santo Tirso Monte Córdova 10 August 2016 · 13:53 8 ha · extinguished on 10 August 2016 · cause: unknown

Total according to ICNF: 201 ha, 130 % of the 154 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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)
8 Aug 33.9 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Aug 28.2 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Aug 27.9 °C 29 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Aug 28.2 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Aug after 30.0 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Aug after 27.3 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Aug after 23.3 °C 53 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Aug after 22.9 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Aug after 21.0 °C 56 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Aug after 21.3 °C 70 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 16
18 Aug after 22.6 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
19 Aug after 19.6 °C 69 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2016
After · 18 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 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak100 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10102 µg/m³
6789101112
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 · 6Every 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 Santo Tirso fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 8 August 2016 to 11 August 2016 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 8 August 2016 to 9 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 154 hectares (1.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Monte Córdova (51 ha, 3.0 %); Santo Tirso, Couto (Santa Cristina e São Miguel) e Burgães (50 ha, 2.0 %); Rebordões (30 ha, 7.0 %); Negrelos (São Mamede) (24 ha, 3.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.0 km of the centre of Negrelos (São Mamede), 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 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 8 August 2016 to 9 August 2016. 6 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 201 official ha against 154 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • 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 2015, 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.