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Soure fire, September 2016 Degracias e Pombalinho, Tapéus, Zambujal

Out · last detection 6 Sept 2016, 14:12 UTC

The fire started on 5 September 2016 in Degracias e Pombalinho, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,691 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 5 September 2016 at 15:33 and declared extinguished on 7 September 2016.

Number 21 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
1,691ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
5 Sept 2016 – 6 Sept 2016
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
5 Sept
2016
Heat detections
67
in a single hotspot: 183 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Sept6 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

6

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 20.8 mm on 13 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. Degracias e Pombalinho 1,049 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town where it started
    1,198 ha reached on 6 Sept
    30 %
  2. Tapéus 326 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    342 ha reached on 6 Sept
    24 %
  3. Zambujal 349 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town
    86 ha reached on 6 Sept
    4.7 %
  4. São Miguel, Santa Eufémia e Rabaçal 3,377 inhabitants · 8.5 km from the town
    67 ha
    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

  • Agricultural areas30 %
  • Other natural land29 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub21 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland14 %
  • Coniferous forest4.7 %
  • Mixed forest1.0 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.8 %
  • Artificial surfaces0.5 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 5 September 2016 and burned 1,383 ha (the satellite measured 1,691 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)
5 Sept 35.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Sept 36.2 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
7 Sept after 26.3 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Sept after 22.7 °C 43 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Sept after 24.5 °C 37 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Sept after 25.9 °C 42 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Sept after 26.8 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
12 Sept after 27.7 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
13 Sept after 18.9 °C 66 % 49 km/h 20.8 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Aug 2016
After · 13 Sept 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 7 September 2016 the air beside the fire reached 100 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak100 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10154 µg/m³
3456789
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 · 67Every 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 Soure fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 5 September 2016 and 6 September 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 5 September 2016 at 15:33 and declared extinguished on 7 September 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,691 hectares (16.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Degracias e Pombalinho (1,198 ha, 30 %); Tapéus (342 ha, 24 %); Zambujal (86 ha, 4.7 %); São Miguel, Santa Eufémia e Rabaçal (67 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of Degracias e Pombalinho. 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 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class 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
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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.