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Vila Verde fire, 30 September 2018 Aboim da Nóbrega e Gondomar, Oriz (Santa Marinha) e Oriz (São Miguel), Valbom (São Pedro), Passô e Valbom (São Martinho)

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2018, 02:56 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2018 in Oriz (Santa Marinha) e Oriz (São Miguel), Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 252 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Vila Verde since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 10 in Portugal in 2018, of 23.

Burnt area
252ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
30 Sept 2018 – 3 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
30 Sept
2018
Heat detections
29
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
17
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
213MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept3 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

30123

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

The weather it burned in

26°high
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 23.7 mm on 11 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Aboim da Nóbrega e Gondomar 902 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the town
    119 ha reached on 26 Sept
    8.3 %
  2. Oriz (Santa Marinha) e Oriz (São Miguel) 509 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town where it started
    42 ha reached on 24 Sept
    7.0 %
  3. Valbom (São Pedro), Passô e Valbom (São Martinho) 595 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town
    40 ha reached on 24 Sept
    6.3 %
  4. Valdreu 434 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the town
    36 ha reached on 24 Sept
    2.0 %
  5. Sande, Vilarinho, Barros e Gomide 1,412 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town
    16 ha reached on 2 Oct
    1.3 %

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 land87 %
  • Agricultural areas7.5 %
  • Broadleaved forest2.4 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.0 %
  • Mixed forest0.8 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, 5 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 441 ha (the satellite measured 252 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)
30 Sept 24.7 °C 38 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Oct 23.6 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
2 Oct 24.5 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Oct 25.5 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Oct after 25.0 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
5 Oct after 20.9 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
6 Oct after 18.1 °C 55 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
7 Oct after 18.1 °C 36 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Oct after 20.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
9 Oct after 20.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Oct after 19.0 °C 42 % 58 km/h 0.1 mm High 25
11 Oct after 16.3 °C 69 % 66 km/h 23.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2018
After · 10 Oct 2018

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 26 September 2018 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
222324252627282930123456
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 · 29Every 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 Verde fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 September 2018 and 3 October 2018: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 252 hectares (2.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Aboim da Nóbrega e Gondomar (119 ha, 8.3 %); Oriz (Santa Marinha) e Oriz (São Miguel) (42 ha, 7.0 %); Valbom (São Pedro), Passô e Valbom (São Martinho) (40 ha, 6.3 %); Valdreu (36 ha, 2.0 %); Sande, Vilarinho, Barros e Gomide (16 ha, 1.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.2 km of Oriz (Santa Marinha) e Oriz (São Miguel). 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 25.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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

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.