Skip to content
worldfires
PT · Portugal · →

Silves fire, July 2020 São Marcos da Serra

Out · last measured on 7 Jul 2020

The fire started on 6 July 2020 in São Marcos da Serra, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 572 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to ICNF, it was detected on 6 July 2020 at 14:56 and declared extinguished on 7 July 2020.

Number 21 in Portugal in 2020, of 67.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
572ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
6 Jul 2020 – 7 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
freguesias
Started on
6 Jul
2020
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

39°high
36km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 53 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. São Marcos da Serra 1,113 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the town where it started
    573 ha
    3.4 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest68 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland15 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub12 %
  • Agricultural areas5.4 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 6 July 2020 and burned 536 ha (the satellite measured 572 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)
6 Jul 38.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jul 38.7 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Jul after 29.2 °C 32 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Jul after 31.7 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Jul after 34.9 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jul after 34.3 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Jul after 34.5 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jul after 37.3 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jul after 34.9 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jul after 35.9 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jul after 38.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jul after 36.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Jun 2020
After · 14 Jul 2020

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 10 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
45678910
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Silves fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 July 2020 and 7 July 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 6 July 2020 at 14:56 and declared extinguished on 7 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 572 hectares (5.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered São Marcos da Serra (573 ha, 3.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.8 km of São Marcos da Serra. 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 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 36 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.

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.

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.