How long did the Sezelhe e Covelães fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 March 2021 to 23 March 2021 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 March 2021 to 21 March 2021.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 209 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sezelhe e Covelães (149 ha, 4.6 %); Pitões das Junias (60 ha, 1.8 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Sezelhe e Covelães 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 11.4 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class Very low.

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 · 2021-03-18 → 2021-03-23

Sezelhe e Covelães fire, March 2021 Sezelhe e Covelães, Pitões das Junias

Out · last detection 22 Mar 2021, 03:01 UTC

The fire started on 18 March 2021 in Sezelhe e Covelães, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 209 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

This entry is most likely a pasture burn or a prescribed winter burn in northern Portugal, not a wildfire. In these hills scrub is burnt to renew grazing, and this fire is not in the ICNF register of rural fires. This is our assumption, based on the time of year and the lack of an official record; it is not confirmed. That is why it is left out of the wildfire rankings.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Muíños · 2017 Entrimo · 2016 Ponte da Barca · 2025 Monterrei · 2025

Burnt area: 209ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 18 Mar 2021 – 23 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit: 2; freguesias
Started on: 18 Mar; 2021
Heat detections: 21; in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start: 4; Very low · FWI index
Average daily power: 47MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Mar23 Mar

Play back 22 Mar 2021

How it evolved, day by day

18 Mar 19 Mar 21 Mar 22 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

11°high

65km/h · peak gust

36%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

14% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 29 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

Sezelhe e Covelães 229 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre where it started

149 ha reached on 18 Mar

4.6 %
Pitões das Junias 151 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre

60 ha reached on 18 Mar

1.8 %

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

Other natural land98 %
Agricultural areas1.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

LIC Peneda / Gerês PTCON0001
ZEPA Serra do Gerês PTZPE0002

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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

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)
18 Mar	11.4 °C	41 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
19 Mar	9.1 °C	54 %	65 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 5
20 Mar	10.5 °C	41 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 3
21 Mar	11.4 °C	36 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 3
22 Mar	12.8 °C	45 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 3
23 Mar	14.4 °C	40 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
24 Mar after	12.5 °C	37 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
25 Mar after	12.8 °C	47 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
26 Mar after	9.0 °C	56 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
27 Mar after	12.9 °C	43 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very low 4
28 Mar after	16.6 °C	34 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
29 Mar after	12.8 °C	49 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 6
30 Mar after	14.4 °C	52 %	36 km/h	0.6 mm	Very low 4
31 Mar after	20.3 °C	31 %	48 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Mar 2021

After · 30 Mar 2021

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 24 March 2021 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1036 µg/m³

WHO 15

16171819202122232425

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 · 21Every 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 Sezelhe e Covelães fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 March 2021 to 23 March 2021 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 March 2021 to 21 March 2021.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 209 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sezelhe e Covelães (149 ha, 4.6 %); Pitões das Junias (60 ha, 1.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Sezelhe e Covelães 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 11.4 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 65 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class Very low.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 March 2021 to 21 March 2021. 21 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
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.
Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.

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