How long did the Vila Flor fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2020 and 26 July 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 July 2020 at 14:51 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 210 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: União das Freguesias de Vila Flor e Nabo (137 ha, 3.4 %); Seixo de Manhoses (63 ha, 7.0 %); Samões (6 ha, 0.4 %); Candoso e Carvalho de Egas (4 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Seixo de Manhoses and came within 1.2 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 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2020-07-25 → 2020-07-26

Vila Flor fire, July 2020 União das Freguesias de Vila Flor e Nabo, Seixo de Manhoses, Samões

Out · last detection 26 Jul 2020, 02:43 UTC

The fire started on 25 July 2020 in Seixo de Manhoses, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 210 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 July 2020 at 14:51 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2020.

Number 40 in Portugal in 2020, of 67.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Torre de Moncorvo · 2026 Mirandela · 2025 Alijó · 2017 Freixo de Espada à Cinta · 2017

Burnt area: 210ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 25 Jul 2020 – 26 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit: 4; freguesias
Started on: 25 Jul; 2020
Heat detections: 2; in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 17MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jul26 Jul

Play back 26 Jul 2020

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jul 26 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

34°high

38km/h · peak gust

23%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

União das Freguesias de Vila Flor e Nabo 2,353 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre

137 ha reached on 26 Jul

3.4 %
Seixo de Manhoses 404 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre where it started

63 ha reached on 25 Jul

7.0 %
Samões 338 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre

6 ha

0.4 %
Candoso e Carvalho de Egas 222 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the centre

4 ha

0.4 %

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

Agricultural areas57 %
Scrub and transitional woodland37 %
Mixed forest6.1 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 25 July 2020 and burned 193 ha (the satellite measured 210 ha).

Vila Flor Seixo de Manhoses 25 July 2020 · 14:51 193 ha · extinguished on 25 July 2020 · cause: negligence

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)
25 Jul	32.8 °C	23 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
26 Jul	33.7 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 Jul after	35.0 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
28 Jul after	33.5 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
29 Jul after	35.3 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Jul after	33.9 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 40
31 Jul after	33.1 °C	22 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Aug after	30.9 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
2 Aug after	29.5 °C	26 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
3 Aug after	29.1 °C	31 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
4 Aug after	31.1 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Aug after	33.9 °C	21 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Jul 2020

After · 2 Aug 2020

Before After

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 23 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1022 µg/m³

23242526272829

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 · 2Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vila Flor fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2020 and 26 July 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 25 July 2020 at 14:51 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 210 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: União das Freguesias de Vila Flor e Nabo (137 ha, 3.4 %); Seixo de Manhoses (63 ha, 7.0 %); Samões (6 ha, 0.4 %); Candoso e Carvalho de Egas (4 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Seixo de Manhoses and came within 1.2 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 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 2 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 193 official ha against 210 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 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.

Where it burned