Tarouquela fire, August 2016 Santiago de Piães, Tarouquela, Moimenta
The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Tarouquela, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 367 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 12th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 30 with a page). Number 72 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 367ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 8 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- freguesias
- Started on
- 8 Aug
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 28
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 42MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 17 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Santiago de Piães 1,607 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the centre196 ha reached on 8 Aug11 %
-
91 ha reached on 8 Aug14 %
-
Moimenta 356 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre81 ha reached on 8 Aug12 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Other natural land51 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland44 %
- Broadleaved forest2.4 %
- Agricultural areas2.2 %
- Mixed forest0.5 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Several official records match this area
According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 279 ha (the satellite measured 367 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
ICNF records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Cinfães Santiago de Piães 7 August 2016 · 18:00 238 ha · extinguished on 9 August 2016 · cause: arson
- 2 Cinfães Moimenta 7 August 2016 · 18:30 41 ha · extinguished on 7 August 2016 · cause: arson
Total according to ICNF: 279 ha, 76 % of the 367 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Aug | 35.2 °C | 23 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Aug | 29.4 °C | 32 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 10 Aug | 27.6 °C | 26 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Aug | 28.6 °C | 28 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Aug after | 30.2 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Aug after | 29.2 °C | 23 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Aug after | 26.3 °C | 44 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Aug after | 25.0 °C | 47 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Aug after | 22.4 °C | 49 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Aug after | 21.5 °C | 67 % | 36 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 8 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
Detections table · 28Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,555 haArouca RealJuly 2025 · 5 days · 10 km away
- 8,253 haChaveOctober 2017 · 5 days · 17 km away
- 6,845 haUnião das Freguesias de Campelo e Ovil e Loivos do MonteSeptember 2024 · 3 days · 19 km away
- 35,523 haCastro Daire União das Freguesias de Picão e ErmidaSeptember 2024 · 10 days · 24 km away
- 30,331 haArouca Santa EuláliaAugust 2016 · 9 days · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tarouquela fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 367 hectares (3.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Santiago de Piães (196 ha, 11 %); Tarouquela (91 ha, 14 %); Moimenta (81 ha, 12 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Tarouquela and came within 0.9 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 28 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 279 official ha against 367 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.