Skip to content
worldfires
en
PT · Portugal · →

Seia fire, September 2024 Seixo da Beira, Paranhos

Out · last detection 14 Sept 2024, 13:35 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2024 in Seixo da Beira, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 406 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 September 2024 at 00:21 and declared extinguished on 14 September 2024.

Number 40 in Portugal in 2024, of 69.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pombeiro da Beira · 2017Seia · 2017Penalva do Castelo · 2024Serra da Estrela · 2022

Burnt area
406ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
14 Sept 2024 – 16 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
14 Sept
2024
Heat detections
26
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
771MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept16 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

14 Sept 2024 · 771 MW · 26

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
37km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 20 Sept.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 406 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Seixo da Beira 1,369 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    275 ha reached on 14 Sept
    8.2 %
  2. Paranhos 1,265 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the centre
    132 ha reached on 14 Sept
    6.2 %

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

  • Coniferous forest45 %
  • Agricultural areas28 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland27 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 14 September 2024 and burned 438 ha (the satellite measured 406 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)
14 Sept 28.0 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Sept 30.4 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Sept 31.4 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Sept after 27.4 °C 25 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Sept after 27.4 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Sept after 25.9 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 26
20 Sept after 22.4 °C 55 % 26 km/h 2.2 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2024
After · 23 Sept 2024

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 12 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 6 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak6 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM109 µg/m³
Optical depth0.66
121314151617
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 · 26Every 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 Seia fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 September 2024 to 16 September 2024 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 September 2024 to 14 September 2024. According to ICNF, it was detected on 14 September 2024 at 00:21 and declared extinguished on 14 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 406 hectares (4.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Seixo da Beira (275 ha, 8.2 %); Paranhos (132 ha, 6.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Seixo da Beira and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.0 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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 14 September 2024 to 14 September 2024. 26 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 438 official ha against 406 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. 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.