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Vimioso fire, August 2024 São Martinho de Angueira, Caçarelhos e Angueira, Vale de Frades e Avelanoso

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2024, 02:31 UTC

The fire started on 11 August 2024 in Caçarelhos e Angueira, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,013 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 10 August 2024 at 18:10 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2024.

Number 13 in Portugal in 2024, of 69.

Burnt area
2,013ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
11 Aug 2024 – 12 Aug 2024
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
11 Aug
2024
Heat detections
38
in a single hotspot: 138 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Aug12 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 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. São Martinho de Angueira 239 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    1,474 ha reached on 11 Aug
    40 %
  2. Caçarelhos e Angueira 296 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the town
    407 ha reached on 11 Aug
    7.7 %
  3. Vale de Frades e Avelanoso 293 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the town where it started
    85 ha reached on 11 Aug
    1.2 %
  4. Constantim e Cicouro 153 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the town
    42 ha
    1.2 %

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

  • Agricultural areas55 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland39 %
  • Other natural land3.6 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.6 %
  • Mixed forest1.0 %

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 2024 and burned 1,936 ha (the satellite measured 2,013 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)
11 Aug 35.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Aug 31.2 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Aug after 25.7 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
14 Aug after 27.8 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Aug after 29.1 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Aug after 32.3 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 31.6 °C 26 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Aug after 30.5 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Aug after 31.3 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Aug after 31.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Aug after 32.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Aug after 31.9 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Aug 2024
After · 19 Aug 2024

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 13 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
Optical depth0.26
9101112131415
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 · 38Every 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 11 August 2024 and 12 August 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 10 August 2024 at 18:10 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,013 hectares (20.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: São Martinho de Angueira (1,474 ha, 40 %); Caçarelhos e Angueira (407 ha, 7.7 %); Vale de Frades e Avelanoso (85 ha, 1.2 %); Constantim e Cicouro (42 ha, 1.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of São Martinho de Angueira. 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 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.

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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.