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Vila de Rei fire, July 2019 Cardigos, Amêndoa, São João do Peso

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2019, 13:03 UTC

The fire started on 20 July 2019 in Cardigos, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 9,924 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 8 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 20 July 2019 at 14:50 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2019.

The largest in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sertã · 2017Mação · 2017Ferreira do Zêzere · 2017Castelo Branco · 2023

Burnt area
9,924ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
20 Jul 2019 – 22 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
8
freguesias
Started on
20 Jul
2019
Heat detections
342
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.7GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jul22 Jul
22 Jul 2019

How it evolved, day by day

21 Jul 2019 · 3,323 MW · 303 22 Jul 2019 · 175 MW · 39
21 Jul 22 Jul

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
56km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 27 Jul.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 238 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.3% of the area of London (99 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Cardigos 965 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    4,173 ha reached on 21 Jul
    59 %
  2. Amêndoa 387 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre
    1,500 ha reached on 21 Jul
    40 %
  3. São João do Peso 132 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    1,188 ha reached on 21 Jul
    92 %
  4. Vila de Rei 2,595 inhabitants · 4.2 km from the centre
    1,161 ha reached on 21 Jul
    8.2 %
  5. Fundada 552 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre
    1,151 ha reached on 21 Jul
    31 %
  6. Cumeada e Marmeleiro 659 inhabitants · 2.7 km from the centre
    651 ha reached on 21 Jul
    13 %
  7. Cernache do Bonjardim, Nesperal e Palhais 3,364 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre
    85 ha
    0.8 %
  8. Carvoeiro 519 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre
    27 ha reached on 21 Jul
    0.6 %

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 woodland63 %
  • Other natural land18 %
  • Agricultural areas8.2 %
  • Broadleaved forest6.5 %
  • Coniferous forest4.0 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area20 ha
Residents≈ 650

Inside the perimeter there were about 20 hectares of built-up land and about 650 residents (GHSL 2020, 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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 20 July 2019 and burned 9,249 ha (the satellite measured 9,924 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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incêndio de Vila de Rei e Mação · Incêndio de Fundada · Incêndio de Vila de Rei, Mação e Sertã
Official area reported: 9,249 ha (the satellite measured 9,924 ha)
Declared extinguished: 25 July 2019

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
20 Jul 30.9 °C 37 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jul 33.5 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jul 34.9 °C 27 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Jul after 31.4 °C 31 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul after 33.0 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jul after 29.1 °C 38 % 53 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
26 Jul after 24.7 °C 37 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jul after 24.0 °C 51 % 46 km/h 3.0 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jul 2019
After · 29 Jul 2019

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 22 July 2019 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1029 µg/m³
1819202122232425
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 · 342Every 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 Vila de Rei fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 July 2019 and 22 July 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 20 July 2019 at 14:50 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 9,924 hectares (99.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 8 municipalities: Cardigos (4,173 ha, 59 %); Amêndoa (1,500 ha, 40 %); São João do Peso (1,188 ha, 92 %); Vila de Rei (1,161 ha, 8.2 %); Fundada (1,151 ha, 31 %); Cumeada e Marmeleiro (651 ha, 13 %); Cernache do Bonjardim, Nesperal e Palhais (85 ha, 0.8 %); Carvoeiro (27 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Cardigos and reached its centre: 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 34.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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 ›

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 342 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 9,249 official ha against 9,924 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 3 confirmed sources.
  • 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.