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Viseu fire, August 2016 Boa Aldeia, Farminhão e Torredeita, Coutos de Viseu, Queirã

Out · last detection 12 Aug 2016, 13:41 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2016 in Boa Aldeia, Farminhão e Torredeita, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,045 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to ICNF, the largest of the 7 recorded fires was detected on 8 August 2016 at 11:17 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2016.

Number 32 in Portugal in 2016, of 179.

Burnt area
1,045ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
8 Aug 2016 – 11 Aug 2016
Municipalities hit
4
freguesias
Started on
8 Aug
2016
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Aug 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug11 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

89101112

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
63km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 19 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Boa Aldeia, Farminhão e Torredeita 2,357 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town where it started
    745 ha reached on 8 Aug
    21 %
  2. Coutos de Viseu 1,500 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town
    231 ha reached on 5 Aug
    9.5 %
  3. Queirã 1,227 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the town
    70 ha reached on 11 Aug
    2.9 %
  4. Fornelo do Monte 256 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town
    0 ha reached on 11 Aug
    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 woodland70 %
  • Coniferous forest18 %
  • Agricultural areas7.7 %
  • Artificial surfaces4.5 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to ICNF, 7 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 915 ha (the satellite measured 1,045 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)
5 Aug 30.9 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
6 Aug 33.5 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Aug 34.7 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Aug 35.2 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Aug 32.1 °C 24 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Aug 29.4 °C 24 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Aug 30.5 °C 24 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Aug after 31.7 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Aug after 32.6 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Aug after 31.1 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Aug after 28.1 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Aug after 25.8 °C 39 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Aug after 24.1 °C 58 % 35 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
18 Aug after 27.4 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
19 Aug after 24.0 °C 63 % 36 km/h 1.4 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Aug 2016
After · 18 Aug 2016

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 2016 the air beside the fire reached 161 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 103: 6.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak161 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10177 µg/m³
345678910111213141516171819
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 · 115Every 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 Viseu fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 August 2016 and 11 August 2016: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, the largest of the 7 recorded fires was detected on 8 August 2016 at 11:17 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,045 hectares (10.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Boa Aldeia, Farminhão e Torredeita (745 ha, 21 %); Coutos de Viseu (231 ha, 9.5 %); Queirã (70 ha, 2.9 %); Fornelo do Monte (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of Boa Aldeia, Farminhão e Torredeita. 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 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 63 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.