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Sertã fire, September 2019 Cumeada e Marmeleiro, Cernache do Bonjardim, Nesperal e Palhais, Fundada

Out · last detection 15 Sept 2019, 02:50 UTC

The fire started on 14 September 2019 in Cumeada e Marmeleiro, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 762 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 13 September 2019 at 14:50 and declared extinguished on 14 September 2019.

Number 5 in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

Burnt area
762ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
14 Sept 2019 – 15 Sept 2019
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
14 Sept
2019
Heat detections
52
in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Sept 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Sept15 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

1415

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
55km/h · peak gust
34%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 17 Sept.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Cumeada e Marmeleiro 659 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the town where it started
    610 ha reached on 14 Sept
    12 %
  2. Cernache do Bonjardim, Nesperal e Palhais 3,364 inhabitants · 5.5 km from the town
    151 ha reached on 14 Sept
    1.5 %
  3. Fundada 552 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the town
    2 ha
    0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Scrub and transitional woodland68 %
  • Coniferous forest16 %
  • Agricultural areas11 %
  • Artificial surfaces4.8 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 13 September 2019 and burned 720 ha (the satellite measured 762 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 28.4 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 48
15 Sept 27.8 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm High 26
16 Sept after 27.2 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
17 Sept after 28.3 °C 36 % 33 km/h 1.7 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2019
After · 22 Sept 2019

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 14 September 2019 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
PM1026 µg/m³
12131415161718
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 · 52Every 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 Sertã fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 September 2019 and 15 September 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 13 September 2019 at 14:50 and declared extinguished on 14 September 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 762 hectares (7.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cumeada e Marmeleiro (610 ha, 12 %); Cernache do Bonjardim, Nesperal e Palhais (151 ha, 1.5 %); Fundada (2 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Cumeada e Marmeleiro. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.4 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 55 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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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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.

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.