Tarouquela fire, July 2025 Santiago de Piães, Moimenta, Fornelos
The fire started on 29 July 2025 in Tarouquela, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 949 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 29 July 2025 at 18:21 and declared extinguished on 31 July 2025.
It is the 4th largest in Cinfães since 2016 (of 31 with a page). Number 28 in Portugal in 2025, of 85.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 949ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 29 Jul 2025 – 1 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- freguesias
- Started on
- 29 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 85
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 510MW
- 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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 643 ha in 2016, 42 ha in 2018, 3 ha in 2021, 44 ha in 2022, 31 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 646 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Santiago de Piães 1,607 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the centre338 ha reached on 29 Jul19 %
-
Moimenta 356 inhabitants · fire reached the centre284 ha reached on 30 Jul43 %
-
Fornelos 590 inhabitants · 11.7 km from the centre237 ha reached on 31 Jul23 %
-
92 ha reached on 29 Jul14 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland51 %
- Other natural land42 %
- Agricultural areas4.1 %
- Mixed forest3.1 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.88 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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
Complex of 2 fires according to ICNF
According to ICNF, 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 910 ha (the satellite measured 949 ha).
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 24 July 2025 · 17:38 87 ha · extinguished on 24 July 2025 · cause: arson
- 2 Cinfães Tarouquela 29 July 2025 · 18:21 823 ha · extinguished on 31 July 2025 · cause: arson
Total according to ICNF: 910 ha, 96 % of the 949 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Jul | 31.5 °C | 27 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Jul | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Jul | 31.7 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Aug | 30.4 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Aug after | 31.4 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 3 Aug after | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Aug after | 33.0 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Aug after | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Aug after | 29.8 °C | 39 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 7 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 45 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 8 Aug after | 27.8 °C | 51 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 9 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 52 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Aug after | 31.1 °C | 41 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 11 Aug after | 32.3 °C | 33 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 25 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 1 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 353 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 111: 7.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 85Every 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 · 9 km away
- 8,253 haChaveOctober 2017 · 5 days · 15 km away
- 6,845 haUnião das Freguesias de Campelo e Ovil e Loivos do MonteSeptember 2024 · 3 days · 21 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 · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tarouquela fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 29 July 2025 and 1 August 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 29 July 2025 at 18:21 and declared extinguished on 31 July 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 949 hectares (9.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Santiago de Piães (338 ha, 19 %); Moimenta (284 ha, 43 %); Fornelos (237 ha, 23 %); Tarouquela (92 ha, 14 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire reached the centre of Moimenta: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, 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 · 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. 85 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 910 official ha against 949 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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 2025, 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.