Vinhais fire, September 2024 Rebordelo, Vale das Fontes
The fire started on 2 September 2024 in Rebordelo, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 831 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 1 September 2024 at 16:21 and declared extinguished on 3 September 2024.
It is the 5th largest in Vinhais since 2016 (of 11 with a page). Number 26 in Portugal in 2024, of 69.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 831ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 2 Sept 2024 – 3 Sept 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- freguesias
- Started on
- 2 Sept
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 9
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 8MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 152 ha in 2017, 30 ha in 2018.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Lisbon boundary: geoBoundaries · geoBoundaries, DG Territory (CC0 1.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
519 ha reached on 2 Sept25 %
-
Vale das Fontes 262 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre312 ha reached on 2 Sept18 %
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 land57 %
- Agricultural areas25 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland17 %
- Coniferous 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 1 September 2024 and burned 814 ha (the satellite measured 831 ha).
- Vinhais Rebordelo 1 September 2024 · 16:21 814 ha · extinguished on 3 September 2024 · cause: arson
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 Sept | 26.4 °C | 44 % | 44 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Sept | 26.9 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Sept after | 27.4 °C | 22 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Sept after | 22.1 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Sept after | 17.9 °C | 46 % | 35 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 22 |
| 7 Sept after | 21.8 °C | 41 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 8 Sept after | 23.8 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Sept after | 26.2 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 11 Sept after | 25.8 °C | 35 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Sept after | 24.8 °C | 40 % | 45 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Sept after | 24.0 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 4 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 9Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,405 haVinhais Vale das Fontes28 August 2025 · 3 days · 5 km away
- 13,065 haValpaços ErvõesJuly 2026 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 2,793 haChaves Vila Verde da RaiaJuly 2020 · 3 days · 19 km away
- 3,127 haChaves BusteloJuly 2022 · 5 days · 29 km away
- 3,493 haVilarelho Da RaiaAugust 2025 · 2 days · 30 km away
- 12,026 haA MezquitaAugust 2025 · 9 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Vinhais fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 2 September 2024 and 3 September 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 1 September 2024 at 16:21 and declared extinguished on 3 September 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 831 hectares (8.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Rebordelo (519 ha, 25 %); Vale das Fontes (312 ha, 18 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Rebordelo and came within 0.5 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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 ›
- ICNF · Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas ↗
- ANEPC · Proteção Civil ↗
- Fogos.pt (ocorrências em tempo real) ↗
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 9 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with ICNF: 814 official ha against 831 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.