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Vimioso fire, August 2023 Pinelo, Argozelo, Outeiro

Out · last detection 10 Aug 2023, 13:55 UTC

The fire started on 10 August 2023 in Pinelo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 520 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 10 August 2023 at 11:52 and declared extinguished on 11 August 2023.

Number 6 in Portugal in 2023, of 38.

Burnt area
520ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
10 Aug 2023 – 10 Aug 2023
Municipalities hit
3
freguesias
Started on
10 Aug
2023
Heat detections
16
in a single hotspot: 184 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
994MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Aug10 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

10

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
33km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 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. Pinelo 220 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    340 ha reached on 10 Aug
    10 %
  2. Argozelo 560 inhabitants · 2.3 km from the town where it started
    91 ha reached on 10 Aug
    3.1 %
  3. Outeiro 234 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the town
    90 ha reached on 10 Aug
    2.2 %

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 land48 %
  • Agricultural areas40 %
  • Mixed forest4.6 %
  • Coniferous forest4.4 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 77 %

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 10 August 2023 and burned 484 ha (the satellite measured 520 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)
10 Aug 34.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug after 35.4 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 33.1 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Aug after 33.0 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Aug after 31.8 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug after 30.7 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Aug after 31.5 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Aug after 31.6 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Aug after 30.6 °C 36 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug after 31.2 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Aug after 34.6 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Aug 2023
After · 17 Aug 2023

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 9 August 2023 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
PM1070 µg/m³
Optical depth0.48
8910111213
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 · 16Every 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 10 August 2023 and 10 August 2023: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 10 August 2023 at 11:52 and declared extinguished on 11 August 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 520 hectares (5.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pinelo (340 ha, 10 %); Argozelo (91 ha, 3.1 %); Outeiro (90 ha, 2.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.5 km of Pinelo. 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 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

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.