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Silves fire, July 2022 São Marcos da Serra, São Bartolomeu de Messines, São Barnabé

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2022, 02:57 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2022 in São Marcos da Serra, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,322 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 July 2022 at 13:13 and declared extinguished on 27 July 2022.

Number 13 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
1,322ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
25 Jul 2022 – 26 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
25 Jul
2022
Heat detections
40
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
71
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
410MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul26 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2526

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
52km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 166 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. São Marcos da Serra 1,113 inhabitants · 7.1 km from the town where it started
    978 ha reached on 25 Jul
    5.9 %
  2. São Bartolomeu de Messines 8,159 inhabitants · 8.7 km from the town
    342 ha reached on 26 Jul
    1.4 %
  3. São Barnabé 371 inhabitants · 10.7 km from the town
    5 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 woodland52 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub26 %
  • Broadleaved forest15 %
  • Agricultural areas7.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 59 %

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.

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 25 July 2022 and burned 1,321 ha (the satellite measured 1,322 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)
25 Jul 39.0 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
26 Jul 34.1 °C 24 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
27 Jul after 29.9 °C 36 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Jul after 33.3 °C 32 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jul after 34.3 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
30 Jul after 35.7 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
31 Jul after 36.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Aug after 36.9 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Aug after 35.7 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Aug after 33.5 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Aug after 33.1 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Aug after 32.7 °C 33 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jul 2022
After · 2 Aug 2022

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 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1040 µg/m³
23242526272829
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 · 40Every 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 Silves fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2022 and 26 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 July 2022 at 13:13 and declared extinguished on 27 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,322 hectares (13.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: São Marcos da Serra (978 ha, 5.9 %); São Bartolomeu de Messines (342 ha, 1.4 %); São Barnabé (5 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 7.1 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 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very extreme.
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.