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Tarouca fire, August 2025 São João de Tarouca, União das Freguesias de Tarouca e Dálvares

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2025, 01:36 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2025 in São João de Tarouca, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 405 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 August 2025 at 17:00 and declared extinguished on 20 August 2025.

Number 43 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.

Burnt area
405ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
17 Aug 2025 – 18 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
17 Aug
2025
Heat detections
21
in a single hotspot: 209 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
724MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1718

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
41km/h · peak gust
33%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. São João de Tarouca 460 inhabitants · 0.2 km from the town where it started
    376 ha reached on 17 Aug
    20 %
  2. União das Freguesias de Tarouca e Dálvares 689 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the town
    29 ha reached on 18 Aug
    1.3 %

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 woodland51 %
  • Coniferous forest17 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %
  • Other natural land12 %
  • Mixed forest7.8 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 16 August 2025 and burned 391 ha (the satellite measured 405 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)
17 Aug 29.9 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Aug 25.7 °C 42 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 24.2 °C 44 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Aug after 24.1 °C 43 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Aug after 25.9 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
22 Aug after 28.0 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Aug after 29.2 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Aug after 27.3 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Aug after 28.1 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Aug after 27.0 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Aug after 20.8 °C 52 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
28 Aug after 20.7 °C 44 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Aug 2025
After · 25 Aug 2025

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 17 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 89 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 27: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak89 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10158 µg/m³
Optical depth1.68
15161718192021
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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tarouca fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 August 2025 and 18 August 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 16 August 2025 at 17:00 and declared extinguished on 20 August 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 405 hectares (4.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: São João de Tarouca (376 ha, 20 %); União das Freguesias de Tarouca e Dálvares (29 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.2 km of São João de Tarouca. 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 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 41 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.