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Sobreira fire, August 2016 Sobreira, Aguiar de Sousa, Lagares e Figueira

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2016, 02:19 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2016 in Sobreira, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 211 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 11 August 2016 at 08:00 and declared extinguished on 11 August 2016.

Number 106 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
211ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
11 Aug 2016 – 12 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
11 Aug
2016
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
233MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
52km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Sobreira 4,124 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town where it started
    178 ha reached on 11 Aug
    8.1 %
  2. Aguiar de Sousa 1,582 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town
    17 ha reached on 11 Aug
    0.8 %
  3. Lagares e Figueira 2,780 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    16 ha reached on 11 Aug
    1.0 %

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 woodland79 %
  • Other natural land17 %
  • Agricultural areas1.9 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.9 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 256 ha (the satellite measured 211 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)
11 Aug 29.5 °C 32 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 31.3 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Aug after 28.7 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Aug after 24.6 °C 54 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Aug after 24.2 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Aug after 22.4 °C 57 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Aug after 22.6 °C 70 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 17
18 Aug after 23.9 °C 47 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
19 Aug after 21.0 °C 69 % 30 km/h 1.5 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2016
After · 19 Aug 2016

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 11 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 131 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak131 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10148 µg/m³
9101112131415
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 · 16Every 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 Sobreira fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 11 August 2016 and 12 August 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 3 recorded fires was detected on 11 August 2016 at 08:00 and declared extinguished on 11 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 211 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sobreira (178 ha, 8.1 %); Aguiar de Sousa (17 ha, 0.8 %); Lagares e Figueira (16 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.4 km of Sobreira. 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 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.