How long did the Viseu fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2020 and 19 July 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 18 July 2020 at 14:13 and declared extinguished on 19 July 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bodiosa (98 ha, 3.9 %); São Miguel do Mato (10 ha, 1.1 %); Ribafeita (7 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire came within 0.8 km of the centre of São Miguel do Mato, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

PT · Portugal · 2020-07-18 → 2020-07-19

Viseu fire, July 2020 Bodiosa, São Miguel do Mato, Ribafeita

Out · last detection 18 Jul 2020, 13:15 UTC

The fire started on 18 July 2020 in Bodiosa, Portugal, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 115 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to ICNF, it was detected on 18 July 2020 at 14:13 and declared extinguished on 19 July 2020.

Number 62 in Portugal in 2020, of 67.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.9 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…

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Burnt area: 115ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 18 Jul 2020 – 19 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit: 3; freguesias
Started on: 18 Jul; 2020
Heat detections: 1; in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 7MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jul19 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jul 2020 · 7 MW · 1

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

39km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 21 Jul.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Bodiosa 2,840 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the centre where it started

98 ha reached on 18 Jul

3.9 %
São Miguel do Mato 808 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the centre

10 ha

1.1 %
Ribafeita 1,079 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre

7 ha

0.4 %

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

Scrub and transitional woodland65 %
Agricultural areas32 %
Mixed forest1.8 %
Coniferous forest1.8 %

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

Official record

According to ICNF, this fire started on 18 July 2020 and burned 100 ha (the satellite measured 115 ha).

Viseu Bodiosa 18 July 2020 · 14:13 100 ha · extinguished on 19 July 2020 · cause: negligence

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)
18 Jul	34.6 °C	27 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
19 Jul	29.4 °C	40 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
20 Jul after	31.9 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
21 Jul after	29.8 °C	41 %	37 km/h	2.4 mm	Moderate 11

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Jul 2020

After · 26 Jul 2020

Before After

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 21 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1029 µg/m³

WHO 15

16171819202122

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 · 1Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Portugal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Viseu fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2020 and 19 July 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to ICNF, it was detected on 18 July 2020 at 14:13 and declared extinguished on 19 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 115 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bodiosa (98 ha, 3.9 %); São Miguel do Mato (10 ha, 1.1 %); Ribafeita (7 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire came within 0.8 km of the centre of São Miguel do Mato, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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What really happened?

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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.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. One Suomi-NPP VIIRS detection on those dates.
Compared with ICNF: 100 official ha against 115 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned