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Vimioso fire, August 2019 Carção, Santulhão, Vimioso

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2019, 14:13 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2019 in Carção, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 242 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 30 August 2019 at 14:57 and declared extinguished on 30 August 2019.

Number 23 in Portugal in 2019, of 52.

Burnt area
242ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
30 Aug 2019 – 30 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
30 Aug
2019
Heat detections
7
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
487MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug30 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

30

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
34km/h · peak gust
33%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

  1. Carção 388 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town where it started
    181 ha reached on 30 Aug
    6.6 %
  2. Santulhão 330 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town
    61 ha reached on 30 Aug
    1.2 %
  3. Vimioso 1,245 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland54 %
  • Other natural land33 %
  • Agricultural areas8.0 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 73 %

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 30 August 2019 and burned 243 ha (the satellite measured 242 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.

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 Aug 30.9 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
31 Aug after 31.1 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Sept after 28.7 °C 36 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Sept after 28.1 °C 31 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Sept after 30.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Sept after 31.0 °C 21 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept after 25.1 °C 25 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Sept after 23.8 °C 26 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Sept after 25.7 °C 19 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Sept after 27.1 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Sept after 25.4 °C 25 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Aug 2019
After · 6 Sept 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 31 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 13 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak13 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1019 µg/m³
2829303112
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 · 7Every 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 Vimioso fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 August 2019 and 30 August 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 30 August 2019 at 14:57 and declared extinguished on 30 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 242 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Carção (181 ha, 6.6 %); Santulhão (61 ha, 1.2 %); Vimioso (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Carção. 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 30.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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
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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.

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.