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Vila Verde fire, 29 September 2018 União das freguesias de Crasto, Ruivos e Grovelas, Vade, Boalhosa

Out · last detection 3 Oct 2018, 14:19 UTC

The fire started on 29 September 2018 in União das freguesias de Crasto, Ruivos e Grovelas, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 339 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Ponte da Barca since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 8 in Portugal in 2018, of 23.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ponte da Barca · 2025Cabração e Moreira do Lima · 2016Arcos de Valdevez · 2016Nogueira, Meixedo e Vilar de Murteda · 2016

Burnt area
339ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
29 Sept 2018 – 3 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
5
freguesias
Started on
29 Sept
2018
Heat detections
33
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Average daily power
312MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Sept3 Oct
3 Oct 2018

How it evolved, day by day

29 Sept 2018 · 37 MW · 3 2 Oct 2018 · 453 MW · 12 3 Oct 2018 · 447 MW · 18
29 Sept 2 Oct 3 Oct

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
31km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 22.4 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. União das freguesias de Crasto, Ruivos e Grovelas where it started
    176 ha reached on 29 Sept
    18 %
  2. Vade 1,453 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre
    97 ha reached on 29 Sept
    6.2 %
  3. Boalhosa 117 inhabitants · fire reached the centre
    41 ha reached on 3 Oct
    19 %
  4. Ribeira do Neiva 3,360 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the centre
    17 ha
    0.5 %
  5. Boivães 768 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre
    8 ha reached on 3 Oct
    2.4 %

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

  • Other natural land93 %
  • Broadleaved forest4.5 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.1 %

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

Several official records match this area

According to ICNF, 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 642 ha (the satellite measured 339 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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.

When each one burned

1 232 ha 2 10 ha 3 400 ha
29 Sept3 Oct
rekindling
  1. 1 Ponte da Barca Crasto 29 September 2018 · 11:13 232 ha · extinguished on 29 September 2018 · cause: rekindling
  2. 2 Vila Verde Valões 30 September 2018 · 11:14 10 ha · extinguished on 30 September 2018 · cause: rekindling
  3. 3 Vila Verde Codeceda 2 October 2018 · 11:02 400 ha · extinguished on 3 October 2018 · cause: rekindling

Total according to ICNF: 642 ha, 189 % of the 339 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)
2 Oct 25.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
3 Oct 26.2 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Oct after 25.3 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
5 Oct after 19.9 °C 43 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
6 Oct after 17.8 °C 55 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
7 Oct after 18.8 °C 33 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
8 Oct after 20.8 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
9 Oct after 21.4 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
10 Oct after 19.1 °C 40 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
11 Oct after 17.0 °C 63 % 67 km/h 22.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 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 3 October 2018 the air beside the fire reached 20 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak20 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1027 µg/m³
27282930123456
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 · 33Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 September 2018 to 3 October 2018 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 October 2018 to 3 October 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 339 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: União das freguesias de Crasto, Ruivos e Grovelas (176 ha, 18 %); Vade (97 ha, 6.2 %); Boalhosa (41 ha, 19 %); Ribeira do Neiva (17 ha, 0.5 %); Boivães (8 ha, 2.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire reached the centre of Boalhosa: 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 26.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, 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

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
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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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 October 2018 to 3 October 2018. 33 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with ICNF: 642 official ha against 339 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • 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.