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Tourém fire, January 2022 Tourém, Pitões das Junias

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2022, 03:14 UTC

The fire started on 28 January 2022 in Tourém, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 189 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 24th largest in Montalegre since 2016 (of 56 with a page). Number 72 in Portugal in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
189ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
28 Jan 2022 – 30 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
2
freguesias
Started on
28 Jan
2022
Heat detections
21
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
189MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2930

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

The weather it burned in

11°high
28km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 59 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Tourém 110 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town where it started
    175 ha reached on 29 Jan
    10 %
  2. Pitões das Junias 151 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the town
    14 ha reached on 29 Jan
    0.4 %

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

  • Other natural land67 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland18 %
  • Broadleaved forest15 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 29 January 2022 and burned 85 ha (the satellite measured 189 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
28 Jan 9.8 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
29 Jan 10.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
30 Jan 11.1 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
31 Jan after 9.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
1 Feb after 9.4 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
2 Feb after 12.8 °C 41 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
3 Feb after 8.3 °C 57 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
4 Feb after 5.5 °C 78 % 19 km/h 0.6 mm Very low 1
5 Feb after 7.7 °C 56 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
6 Feb after 8.5 °C 43 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
7 Feb after 11.9 °C 39 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
8 Feb after 11.3 °C 36 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
9 Feb after 12.1 °C 46 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jan 2022
After · 6 Feb 2022

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 1 February 2022 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
26272829303112
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 Tourém fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 28 January 2022 and 30 January 2022: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 189 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tourém (175 ha, 10 %); Pitões das Junias (14 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.0 km of Tourém. 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 11.1 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very low.
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
What do you think is wrong?

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.