Key takeaways
- ICNF counts 269,085 hectares burned on the mainland in 2025 to 15 October, 2.2 times the 2015–2024 average of 123,046 and the largest since 2017; SGIFR's full-year figure is 270,695 and EFFIS gives 278,387.
- Six Centro districts took 197,692 hectares (73.5%) and five Norte districts 59,444 (22.1%), so 95.6% of 2025's burned area lay there; Lisbon district had 102 hectares and Faro 2,208 (ICNF, derived).
- Centro burned 6.4 times its share of national tourist nights and the Algarve 0.03 times its share (SGIFR regional split against Eurostat nights, approximate because the regional maps differ).
- Eurostat's Centro nights grew 13.4% in 2017 against 9.1% for Portugal, and 2.2% against 3.3% in 2018 (2021 regional boundary, derived); no sub-regional series isolates the burned municipalities.
- Madeira's August 2024 fire burned 5,116 hectares over 13 days with no deaths; island nights rose 3.3% in 2024, August grew 0.2% and September 1.1% on Eurostat's scope, and hotel revenue in August rose 10.7% (DREM).
- The claim that the fire closed Madeira's airport is false: winds stranded about 900 people against a usual 300 to 400, and both airports carried 3.0% more passengers in August 2024 (regional secretary; ANA via DREM).
- The PR1 through-route between Pico do Arieiro and Pico Ruivo reopened on 1 May 2026, about 20.5 months after the fire; Laurissilva burned is 139 hectares (IFCN) or 149 (IUCN), and neither states a method.
- No official body publishes cancellation or closure counts after a fire; the 70% booking fall after 2017 and the 90% Madeira cancellation rise are unsourced, and the only published studies find small effects (Otrachshenko and Nunes 2022; Cerejeira et al. 2023).
Portugal's rural fires burned 269,085 hectares in 2025 to 15 October, according to ICNF's provisional report. That is 2.2 times the 2015–2024 average of 123,046 hectares and the largest area since 2017. In the same year Eurostat's count of nights in Portuguese tourist accommodation rose 1.5% to 89.4 million, a record.
The two numbers coexist because the fires burn where the nights are not. Six Centro districts took 197,692 hectares, 73.5% of the mainland total, and five Norte districts took 59,444, so 95.6% of the burned area lay in the interior centre and north (derived from ICNF). The Lisbon district recorded 102 hectares and the Faro district 2,208, together 0.9%, while the Algarve alone holds 25.7% of national nights. Madeira shows the same pattern at small scale. Its August 2024 fire burned 5,116 hectares over 13 days, killed nobody, destroyed no homes by the regional government's account, and the island finished the year with nights up 3.3% on Eurostat's basis.
What the data does not show is the local cost. No official body has published a count of cancellations or closed accommodation after any Portuguese fire. The best-known tourism figure, a 70% fall in bookings after 2017, cannot be traced to a speaker or a date. Academic studies exist and find that burned area reduces arrivals, but their effects are small and none isolates the 2022, 2024 or 2025 fires. This article sets out the burned-area record, tests eleven circulating claims (five of them ours), and says what the night counts can and cannot tell a traveller or an investor.
The 2025 season: 269,085 hectares, four totals and one disputed ranking
ICNF's eighth provisional report of 2025, with a cut-off of 15 October, counts 8,235 fires and 269,085 hectares. The government's rural-fire agency AGIF gave about 270,000 hectares and 8,284 fires to 30 November. The SGIFR activity report of 15 July 2026 gives 270,695 hectares, the independent technical commission set up by Law 5/2026 counts 271,587, and EFFIS's table gives 278,387. The gaps come from cut-off dates and mapping methods, not from disagreement about the scale. We use ICNF's figure for district tables and 'about 270,000 hectares' for the full year.
The ranking is where the numbers diverge. ICNF says 2025 had the second-highest burned area since 2015. SGIFR and AGIF place it fourth since 2001, behind 2017, 2003 and 2005. Our own series notes had called it the second-worst of the century, which neither source supports. The claim that holds is the narrower one: the largest area since 2017, when ICNF's table shows 537,131 hectares.
The damage was concentrated in a few fires. AGIF reports that 44 fires above 500 hectares were 0.5% of all fires and 91% of the area. The two largest were Arganil and Piódão at 65,417 hectares and Trancoso at 46,906. The commission found that initial attack succeeded in more than 90% of fires overall but only 55.4% of fast-spreading ones, and that fires which escaped initial attack caused 98.4% of the area. Deaths are counted differently by each body. AGIF lists four dead in the August 2025 fires, with two civilian deaths under investigation, while the SGIFR report gives six.
The series shows how unusual the extremes are. 2017 was 537,131 hectares: the Pedrógão Grande fire in June killed 66 people, injured 253 and burned about 53,000 hectares, and the October fires killed 50 and burned more than 220,000. September 2024 supplied 126,076 hectares, 92% of that year's provisional total, with the deaths put at five (ANEPC, excluding two civilians who died of illness), seven (DN) or nine (ICNF via Lusa), and 16 for all of 2024 in the SGIFR report. One caveat applies to the table. ICNF's 2025 report captions its history rows with the 2025 window. The 2017 value cannot be a 1 January to 15 October figure because the October fires began on the 15th and 16th, so we read the 2015–2024 rows as full-year values. That is our inference, not ICNF's statement.
The 2026 season has been lighter on area and heavier on ignitions. ICNF counts 67,130 hectares and 6,910 fires to 31 August, 73.5% below the same point in 2025, 25% below the ten-year average and the fifth-highest of the decade. The Vouzela fire that began on 2 July burned 12,804 hectares, closed the A25 near Vouzela for two hours and twenty minutes that evening, and led to a mainland situação de alerta from 3 to 6 July. ANEPC's end-of-season balance on 22 October reported 74,560 hectares and 8,573 fires, with 255 people detained. That figure has no stated cut-off and is not ICNF's, so the 'fifth' and 'sixth' ranks quoted for 2026 rest on different bases.
Where it burns and where the nights are
The national tourism picture and the national fire picture are drawn on different parts of the map. SGIFR's regional split of the 2025 burned area has Centro at 197,935 hectares, 73.1%, and Norte at 60,541, 22.4%. Alentejo took 9,171, the Algarve 2,205 and Lisbon and Tagus Valley 843. Set against the share of tourist nights, Centro burned 6.4 times its share and the Algarve 0.03 times. Centro is also the region our study of Centro tourism found to be the most domestic in Portugal, with residents taking about 69% of its nights, so its fire exposure falls on a market that international headlines do not describe.
The mainland's best-known tourist areas sit mostly outside the burned zone. The Algarve study places 25.7% of national nights in the Algarve, and its fire record in 2025 was the Aljezur fire of 21 September at 2,101 hectares. Our Algarve water-stress article covers the region's separate drought risk. Lisbon and Porto cities are not in the burned area at all, and the Porto and Norte study shows the region's nights concentrated in the metropolitan area while the 2025 Norte fires burned in Bragança, Vila Real, Viana do Castelo and Braga districts. The Douro study records the August 2025 fires around Freixo de Espada à Cinta, Moncorvo and Mogadouro, which lie in the far upper Douro and Trás-os-Montes.
Peneda-Gerês shows how loosely fire numbers get quoted. ICNF lists the Ponte da Barca and Lindoso fire of 26 July 2025 at 7,164 hectares for the whole fire, while a mayor put the Park's loss at more than 7,500. The two cannot be reconciled from published data.
Sintra is the exception that matters most to visitors, because a fire there closes monuments and not only forest. Parques de Sintra closes Pena, the Moorish Castle, Capuchos and Monserrate when IPMA rates fire danger very high or maximum. Documented closures are seven monuments on 15 to 19 September 2024, Pena and others on 27 to 29 July 2025, reports of closures during the 3 to 7 August alert, and six monuments on 13 June 2026. Our Sintra overtourism article carried a derived figure of at least 20 closure days in 2025 and attributed part of a 2025 fall in entries to it. We could document about eight days at Pena, a March 2025 storm closed it for more than a week, and no annual count is published. That derived figure is withdrawn here and the entry fall cannot be assigned to fire. The visitor data are in our Sintra and Cascais study.
What the night counts show
Eurostat's annual series gives the cleanest long view available, and it shows no dent. On the 2021 regional map, Centro recorded 7,218,757 nights in 2016, 8,185,435 in 2017, 8,369,214 in 2018 and 8,725,876 in 2019. That is growth of 13.4% in the fire year against 9.1% for the country, then 2.2% against 3.3% in 2018. That is a regional result and says little about the burned municipalities. Centro includes Aveiro, Coimbra and a long coast. Eurostat publishes no sub-regional nights before 2020 and the municipal series that would isolate Pedrógão Grande, Castanheira de Pêra or Figueiró dos Vinhos was not reachable from our research environment, because ine.pt is blocked and the Pordata pages could not be opened.
| Year | Centro (PT16) | Centro growth | Portugal | Portugal growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 7,218,757 | 66,014,226 | ||
| 2017 | 8,185,435 | +13.4% | 72,035,786 | +9.1% |
| 2018 | 8,369,214 | +2.2% | 74,407,596 | +3.3% |
| 2019 | 8,725,876 | +4.3% | 77,594,254 | +4.3% |
The recent NUTS III figures are equally inconclusive. Região de Aveiro, which holds three of the municipalities hit in September 2024, grew 2.6% in 2024 against 3.75% nationally and fell 2.8% in 2025. Região de Coimbra, which includes Arganil and Oliveira do Hospital, grew 1.1% in 2025 against 1.5%. Beiras e Serra da Estrela grew 1.9% in 2025, and Cávado, which includes Terras de Bouro on the Gerês side, grew 0.5%. The gaps are 0.4 to 4 points on regional totals dominated by unburned areas, so they cannot be attributed to fire.
Two peer-reviewed or working-paper studies use municipal data. Otrachshenko and Nunes (Environment and Development Economics, 2022) use 278 municipalities from 2000 to 2016 and find that burned area reduces both domestic and inbound arrivals, projecting an annual cost in 2030 of €17.0 million to €24.2 million in domestic arrivals and €18.3 million to €38.1 million in inbound arrivals. Cerejeira and co-authors (NIPE Working Paper 1/2023, Minho) use 2017 to 2020 fire data against 2020 to August 2021 nights and find a small same-municipality effect at 10% significance and a neighbouring-municipality effect at 5% significance, a positive coefficient at a three-month lag that may reflect postponed travel, and R-squared values of 0.03 to 0.06. The authors acknowledge omitted-variable bias. A press-reported item is a European Central Bank study cited by DN on 17 May 2026, which says hotel and tourism revenue in the 2017 burned areas fell between 20% and more than 40%. DN names no title or authors and we have not found the paper, so we do not rely on its numbers. The IGOT project PYROTuR counts 230 short-term rentals and 166 hotels inside the 2017 burned area, with final results pending.
Operator figures are the other evidence, and they are anecdotes. After the August 2025 fires the hospitality association AHRESP told Lusa that occupancy in affected zones, normally close to 100%, had fallen below 5% with 'massive cancellations', and gave no percentage or method (ECO, 28 August 2025). A Serra da Estrela hotel group reported about €500,000 of losses across five units, and a Gerês tour company cancelled 90% of two peak weeks, losing about €7,000. For the 2022 Serra da Estrela fire, the head of Turismo Centro put overall cancellations at 5% to 10%, with about 70% at one rural house in Gouveia and about 60% at one hotel in Manteigas, while other hotels in the park stayed full. That 70% is a single house, and the 70% fall in 2017 bookings that circulates for the whole region has no named speaker. The nearest source is an unattributed line in ECO and Lusa of 16 June 2018 that reads 'declines above 70%'.
Public support is also small next to the claims. In 2017 the government announced €8.5 million for tourism businesses. In September 2024 Turismo de Portugal opened a €10 million treasury line of interest-free repayable support up to 25% of 2023 turnover, capped at €300,000. The August 2025 decree-law and resolution (DL 98-A/2025 and RCM 126-A/2025) covered 313 parishes in 73 municipalities, and we found no total envelope. The Serra da Estrela revitalisation plan, RCM 40/2024, sets €155 million over 48 months. At a parliamentary hearing on 31 March 2026 the association head said five or six projects worth about €5 million were complete and the plan had no secured funding. Our tracker had read that as €5 million to €6 million spent, which overstated delivery.
Madeira 2024: the fire that spared the hotels and closed the trails
The Madeira fire began about 08:00 on 14 August 2024 in the hills of Serra de Água in Ribeira Brava, spread to Câmara de Lobos, Ponta do Sol and Santana, and was declared extinguished on 26 August. IFCN's president gave the final area as 5,116 hectares on 30 August, against interim EFFIS values of 5,002 to 5,104 hectares. Early figures ranged from 4,392 hectares (regional civil protection, 20 August) to about 7,000 (a regional secretary, 19 August) and an outer-perimeter 8,162 in the press. Scrub, broom and gorse were 48% of the vegetation and 86% of the land was private. The regional president called the fire arson and a suspect was named an arguido, and the cause remains under judicial investigation. About 200 residents were told to leave their homes as a precaution, there were no deaths, and the government reported no homes or essential infrastructure destroyed.
The 2016 Funchal fire is the comparator islanders remember. NASA's Earth Observatory gives about 3,200 hectares, three deaths and more than 150 homes destroyed, while Lusa and DN reported three deaths, 300 homes totally or partially destroyed and €157 million of damage a year later. On the one value all sources share, the 2024 fire burned about 60% more area than 2016 and cost no lives. No source we opened reports Funchal threatened in 2024, and that goes a long way to explaining why the tourism data show so little.
The airport claim is the clearest error in the coverage. The disruption in the second half of August 2024 was caused by strong winds. About 900 passengers were stranded at the peak against the usual 300 to 400, and Time Out reported 23 flights cancelled on 15 August and more than 50 by 20 August. The regional secretary said the fires never jeopardised the airport's normal functioning, and ANA data reproduced by DREM show both airports carrying 494,800 passengers in August 2024, up 3.0%.
| Month | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2024 vs 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July | 930,576 | 943,668 | 1,004,197 | +1.4% |
| August (fire 14–26 Aug) | 987,005 | 989,440 | 1,038,523 | +0.2% |
| September | 879,693 | 889,004 | 916,679 | +1.1% |
| October | 830,719 | 853,956 | 905,198 | +2.8% |
| November | 678,404 | 731,659 | 734,212 | +7.9% |
| December | 584,781 | 642,029 | 622,783 | +9.8% |
| Full year | 9,269,336 | 9,577,181 | 9,952,837 | +3.3% |
The night counts show the fire as a pause in a strong year. On Eurostat's scope nights rose 3.06% from January to July 2024 and 3.67% from August to December. August (+0.25%) and September (+1.06%) were the two weakest months, and October to December were the strongest. DREM's own provisional bulletin gives a mixed signal. Hotel nights fell 1.8% in August and 1.4% in September while revenue rose 10.7% and 15.1%, and the August average daily rate rose 12.1% to €133.77. DREM's first estimate of all-accommodation nights was +4.6% in August, and −0.3% when units under 10 beds were excluded, close to Eurostat's near-zero reading. UK nights fell 3.2% in August and 4.8% in September, while German and French nights rose. August is the island's peak month, with bed occupancy of 75.1% (hotels 78.1%), so a fire would show up as lower prices or a missed upturn, and the price data point the other way. Our Madeira tourism statistics article covers the longer series, including the gap between DREM's 12.9 million nights for 2025 and Eurostat's 9.95 million.
No hotel cancellation figure exists. The regional secretary said contacted hotels and agencies reported no cancellation trend. The Funchal commerce association claimed that 80% to 90% of mountain tour activities were cancelled from 18 August, a statement we found second-hand in a party press release, and it concerns excursions, not hotel stays. A '90% rise in tourist cancellations' that appears on one travel site has no source and probably garbles that statement.
The measurable cost was the trails. The through route on PR1 from Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo closed with the fire. A short stub of PR1 (Areeiro to Miradouro da Pedra Rija, about 1.2 kilometres), PR1.2 and most of PR1.1 reopened on 4 September 2024, while PR1.3, PR2, PR12, PR17, PR27, Fajã Escura, Pico Grande, Boca dos Namorados, Pico Furão and the summit of Pico Ruivo stayed closed. IFCN fitted gates, with fines of €250 to €500 for individuals and €2,500 to €10,000 for companies. The through route reopened on 1 May 2026, one-way beyond Pedra Rija, with hourly slots on Friday to Sunday and daily from 26 June, and the non-resident quota sold out on day one. That is about 20.5 months from the fire (derived). PR1.3 has no reopening date, restoration had not started on about 17 kilometres of connected burned trails in November 2025, and the repair cost is unpublished. The slot rules that now govern all 42 classified trails are in our trail carrying-capacity study, and the missing walker count is in the Madeira hiking tourism article. The link between the fire and the 2026 slot rules is only partly documented. Sources cite carrying capacity, post-fire safety and a rockfall.
The Laurissilva figure is contested. IFCN reported 139 hectares of laurel forest burned on 30 August 2024. The IUCN World Heritage Outlook, finalised on 11 October 2025, rates the property 'good with some concerns', lists fire as a high threat and gives 149 hectares affected in 2024 and 599 in 2023. Neither value is stated with a method. Both are under 1% of the 15,000-hectare property (UNESCO reference 934, inscribed 1999). The regional government's line of 20 August that the Laurissilva had not been hit was a statement that no damage was known 'so far', and IFCN's number ten days later contradicted it.
Since the fire the island's record has been quiet. SRPC counts 261 rural fires in 2025 totalling 2.5 hectares, and DN Madeira's 2025 summary gives 2.56 hectares. The 2026 DECIR season runs from 1 June to 30 November with €1.6 million of investment. Small fires at Jardim da Serra on 30 July and 23 August and Campanário on 5 September were reported without areas. We found no large Madeira fire in 2026 and no season total.
The rules a visitor meets
IPMA's fire-danger map has five levels: reduced, moderate, high, very high and maximum. According to a municipal circular that applies Decree-Law 82/2021 as amended by DL 49/2022, at the two highest levels burning, campfires, rockets and lit balloons are banned, barbecues are banned outside designated areas, and smoking or naked flame is banned in rural areas and on adjoining roads. Inside priority prevention areas, movement and stay in public forest are banned. A declared situação de alerta adds a ban on entering and staying in forest areas, tracks included. We could not read the Diário da República text, so article numbers are unconfirmed.
Closures follow the trigger, and the trigger varies. Parques de Sintra closed on 'very high' in July 2025, during the 3 to 7 August alert in 2025 and at 'maximum' in June 2026, and publishes no written rule. In Madeira, IFCN closes forest recreation areas and the Eira do Serrado to Areeiro forest road and bans burning during IPMA warnings, as reported on 26 June 2023 and 2 July 2026, but neither report cites a legal instrument. A standing rule that Madeira's forests close on very high-risk days has no basis we could find. On the mainland, the Fundão fire closed the Beira Baixa line, the A23 and the EN18 from 18:00 on 20 August 2025, and the A25 closed on 2 July 2026. We could not confirm closures of the A1 or the Beira Alta line from fires, and found no airport disruption.
Official travel advice is general. The UK FCDO added a 'Wildfires in Portugal' section on 14 August 2025 saying there is a high risk of wildfires during the summer season from April to October, and has not advised against travel to any region. Which? advised against early cancellation, since insurers do not pay for 'disinclination to travel' when the FCDO has not warned against travel. The US Embassy alert we found is undated and generic.
Europe's fire map and Portugal's place in it
The EU recorded 1,079,538 hectares burned in 25 member states in 2025 and 7,783 fires, the highest since EFFIS records began in 2006 and nearly double the 2006 to 2024 average (JRC, 31 March 2026). The August heatwave fires in Portugal and Spain alone burned 460,585 hectares. The record applies to the EFFIS era only: a Spanish researcher notes Spain burned about 500,000 hectares in the 1990s.
Portugal's place depends on the measure. In hectares Spain was larger in 2025, at 393,079 against about 278,000 for Portugal on EFFIS values reached through a secondary aggregator, because the EFFIS portal could not be read. As a share of land Portugal burned about 3.0% and Spain about 0.8% (derived, using assumed land areas), which is the sense in which Portugal had the largest burned share of any EU country in 2025. The shares of the EU total are about 25.8% for Portugal and 36.4% for Spain, which sum to 62% and so cannot be what the JRC means by 'nearly half': that figure refers to the August heatwave fires only.
| Country | Worst year (2006–2025) | Hectares | 2026 to 30 July (ha) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portugal | 2017 | 563,530 | 37,422 |
| Spain | 2025 | 393,079 | 206,768 |
| Greece | 2007 | 271,715 | 4,249 |
| Italy | 2007 | 153,481 | 69,336 |
| Croatia | 2017 | 67,666 | 3,318 |
| Bulgaria | 2007 | 67,598 | 831 |
| France (2026 only) | 91,024 |
For 2017 the claim that Portugal had the EU's largest burned area holds. EFFIS gives Portugal 563,530 hectares, about 6.1% of its land (derived), against 537,131 in ICNF's table. In 2026 to 30 July Spain, France and Italy were all ahead of Portugal on EFFIS values. Our Southern Europe benchmark and Portugal–Greece comparison place the tourism side of this comparison.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers. The fire map and the tourist map overlap in a few places. Lisbon's district recorded 102 hectares in 2025, Setúbal 285 and Faro 2,208, so the cities and the main Algarve coast sit almost outside the burned area. The exposure is in the interior centre and north in July to September (July supplied 55% of the 2026 area to 31 August), in the Sintra hills on days of very high risk, and on Madeira's mountain trails during warnings. In practice, check the IPMA map and the monument's notice that morning, book refundable rooms in the interior in August, and keep a flexible route for Serra da Estrela, Gerês or the Douro uplands. Our best time to visit Portugal guide covers the season, the Serra da Estrela and Sintra guides cover those places, and the Madeira travel guide covers the slots on the island's trails.
Tourism businesses and investors. National indicators are the wrong instrument. A 269,085-hectare year did not appear in national or even regional nights, because 95.6% of it burned in places that hold a small share of them. The risk sits with interior rural lodging, nature-tour operators and trail-dependent businesses, where nobody publishes cancellation counts and the support lines (€8.5 million in 2017, €10 million in 2024) are small against a €155 million recovery plan with no secured funding. Underwrite those assets on local booking data and the operator's own cancellation history. The signals that would change the assessment are a fire that closes a trunk road or airport serving a main destination, a fire inside a coastal Algarve or Lisbon-area tourist zone, a published municipal night series that shows a dent, and the ECB paper cited by DN when it appears.
Journalists and analysts. The safe figures are ICNF's 269,085 hectares for 2025 to 15 October (about 270,000 for the year), the 95.6% concentration in Centro and Norte districts (derived), Madeira's 5,116 hectares with 139 or 149 of Laurissilva, Eurostat's Centro growth of 13.4% in 2017 against 9.1% nationally, and 20.5 months for the PR1 through-route. Do not repeat that 2025 was the second-worst of the century, that the Madeira fire closed the airport or evacuated hotels, that bookings fell 70% in 2017 or that cancellations rose 90% in Madeira, that Portugal burned the most in the EU in 2025 in hectares, that the Serra da Estrela plan has spent €5 million to €6 million, or that Sintra closed for 20 days. The series finding is that Portugal publishes a precise burned-area record and no tourism-impact record at all: no cancellation count, no municipal night series for a fire year and no closure-day count for the monuments it closes.
Data & sources
Period covered: Burned area 2015–2026 to 23 October; tourism nights 2016–2025
- ICNF, 8.º Relatório Provisório de Incêndios Rurais 2025 · Burned area and fires 2015–2025, district totals and ranking, cut-off 15 October 2025. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- ICNF, 6.º Relatório Provisório de Incêndios Rurais 2024 · Cut-off 15 September 2024, used to test whether history rows are full-year values. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- ICNF, Relatório Provisório de Incêndios Rurais 2026 (to 15 August) · 2026 area, fires, districts and the ten-year average. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- SGIFR, Relatório de Atividades 2025 · 270,695 ha, regional split, deaths, investment and averages 2001–2025. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- AGIF via Agroportal/Lusa, 14 December 2025 · 2025 totals to 30 November, size distribution and deaths. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- Observador, 4 September 2026 (ICNF to 31 August) · 2026 area and fires to 31 August against 2025 and the ten-year average. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- Observador, 2 August 2026 (Comissão Técnica Independente) · Independent commission's 271,587 ha total and initial-attack findings. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- DN Madeira, 30 August 2024: 5,116 hectares · IFCN's final area for the August 2024 fire. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- IUCN World Heritage Outlook: Laurisilva of Madeira · 149 ha affected in 2024, 599 ha in 2023, fire as a high threat. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat tourism accommodation datasets (tour_occ_nin2, tour_occ_nin3, tour_occ_nin2m) · Nights for Centro, Madeira and NUTS III regions and Portugal 2016–2025. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- JRC and European Commission, 31 March 2026 · EU 2025 burned area of 1,079,538 ha and 7,783 fires. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- Otrachshenko and Nunes, Fire Takes No Vacation (2022) · Municipal study of burned area and arrivals, 2000–2016. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- Cerejeira et al., NIPE Working Paper 1/2023 · Municipal effect of fires on nights, Minho. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- ECO, 28 August 2025: AHRESP on cancellations · Association statement on occupancy below 5% in affected zones. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- Turismo de Portugal: 2024 treasury support line for fires · €10 million line, terms and cap. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
- Parques de Sintra: monuments closed due to fire risk, July 2025 · Closure dates for Capuchos, Pena, the Moorish Castle and Monserrate. Accessed 26 Oct 2026.
Methodology
This article uses ICNF's provisional rural-fire reports for 2024, 2025 and 2026, the SGIFR 2025 activity report, AGIF and ANEPC statements as reported by Lusa, Observador, RTP, DN and ECO, the independent technical commission's findings as reported by Observador, IFCN, SRPC and DREM figures as reported by DN Madeira, Eurostat's tourism accommodation datasets read through its API, the IUCN World Heritage Outlook, JRC and EFFIS material, two academic studies, UK FCDO and Which? statements, and operator and association statements in the press. ine.pt was not reachable from our research environment, so INE figures come through Eurostat, DREM and press reproductions, and Pordata's municipal pages were not opened.
Limitations: (1) ICNF's 2015–2024 history rows are not labelled full-year; we read them as full-year values by inference. (2) 2025 and 2026 totals are provisional and use different cut-offs. (3) The regional burned-area split comes from chart labels in the SGIFR report and uses ICNF regions that differ from NUTS regions, so ratios against Eurostat nights are indicative. (4) No Eurostat sub-regional nights exist before 2020 and no municipal series was obtained. (5) EFFIS per-country values come from a secondary aggregator because the EFFIS portal could not be read. (6) Madeira's monthly Eurostat values were read from the API and checked against annual totals by summing.
Contested and unverified claims are reported with both values and the evidence for each, and are listed in the corrections panel and the disclaimer. Derived figures are labelled where they appear. Claims introduced by our own earlier work are corrected in the text: the 'second-worst of the century' ranking, the 70% Turismo Centro figure, the Serra da Estrela spending, the Sintra closure days and the Algarve 91 hectares.
Notes on the data
Gaps: no official count of tourism cancellations, closed accommodation or lost revenue after any Portuguese fire; no municipal tourist-night series for Pedrógão Grande, Monchique, the Serra da Estrela municipalities, Arganil or the Gerês municipalities; no Eurostat sub-regional nights before 2020; no hectares by municipality for the 2024 Madeira fire and no count of tourists evacuated; no euro cost for the 2024 Madeira fire or the trail repairs; no annual count of closure days for Sintra's monuments; no ICNF 2026 report after 31 August; no total envelope or payment figure for the August 2025 support package; no legal instrument for Madeira's risk-day forest closures; no Azores fire statistics; and no Diário da República text of the fire-danger restrictions.
Contested figures: Portugal's 2025 burned area is 269,085 ha (ICNF to 15 October), about 270,000 (AGIF to 30 November), 270,695 (SGIFR), 271,587 (independent commission) or 278,387 (EFFIS table); the evidence favours ICNF for district tables and about 270,000 for the year. Madeira's 2024 Laurissilva loss is 139 ha (IFCN) or 149 ha (IUCN). September 2024 deaths are five, seven or nine, and August 2025 deaths four (plus two under investigation) or six. The 2016 Funchal fire killed three or four people and destroyed 37, more than 150 or 300 homes depending on source. Madeira's August 2024 nights are +0.25% on Eurostat's scope and −0.3% on DREM's INE-comparable scope, and DREM's first estimate of 2024 nights (11.7 million) differs from the base implied by its 2025 revision (about 11.96 million), which we did not reconcile. The 2026 season is the fifth-highest of the decade on ICNF's 31 August count and the sixth on ANEPC's 22 October balance, which uses a different base.
Claims that failed verification: that 2025 was the second-worst fire year of the century; that the 2024 Madeira fire closed the airport; that tourists were evacuated from Madeira hotels in 2024; that the Laurissilva was not hit; that the fire burned 8,162 ha; that bookings fell 70% after 2017; that Madeira cancellations rose 90%; that Portugal had the EU's largest burned area in 2025 in hectares; that the Serra da Estrela plan has spent €5 million to €6 million; that Sintra's monuments closed for at least 20 days in 2025; and that the Algarve burned 91 ha in 2025. Five of these came from our own earlier work and are corrected here.
Derived figures: 95.6% (Centro and Norte districts), 0.9% (Lisbon and Faro), 2.2 times the average, 20.5 months of PR1 closure, 60% larger than 2016, regional ratios of 6.4 and 0.03, all Eurostat growth rates, the land shares of 3.0% and 0.8%, and the EU shares of 25.8% and 36.4%. Self-reported figures: AHRESP's occupancy statement, operator losses, ACIF's tour-cancellation claim, regional government statements on damage and the Madeira DECIR budget. The ECB study cited by DN was not located and is not used. This is not legal, insurance or safety advice.
Frequently asked questions
How much of Portugal burned in 2025?
ICNF's provisional report counts 269,085 hectares to 15 October 2025, with SGIFR giving 270,695 hectares for the full year. That is 2.2 times the 2015–2024 average of 123,046 hectares and the largest area since 2017, but only the fourth highest since 2001 on SGIFR's ranking.
Is it safe to travel to Portugal during wildfire season?
The UK FCDO added a wildfire section on 14 August 2025 saying risk is high from April to October, and has not advised against travel to any region. The burned area is concentrated in the interior centre and north, so check the IPMA danger map and local notices on the day. This is not safety advice.
Did the 2024 Madeira fire close the airport?
No. Strong winds disrupted flights, stranding about 900 people against a usual 300 to 400, and the regional secretary said the fires never jeopardised normal airport operations. Madeira's two airports carried 494,800 passengers in August 2024, up 3.0%.
Are Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve affected by wildfires?
Rarely, on the 2025 record: Lisbon district had 102 hectares, Faro district 2,208 hectares including the 2,101-hectare Aljezur fire, and Porto district 4,166. Together Lisbon and Faro were 0.9% of the mainland's burned area, though Sintra's monuments close on very high fire-risk days.
Which parts of Portugal burn most?
The interior centre and north. In 2025 the districts of Guarda (83,790 ha), Viseu (42,183), Castelo Branco (39,313) and Coimbra (26,147) led, followed by Bragança and Vila Real. Six Centro districts took 73.5% of the mainland total.
Did the 2017 fires reduce tourism in Portugal?
National figures show no dent: Eurostat's Centro nights rose 13.4% in 2017 against 9.1% for Portugal. Studies of municipal data find that burned area reduces arrivals, but the effects are small. The widely quoted 70% booking fall has no named source.
Does travel insurance cover cancelling because of wildfires?
Which? says insurers do not pay for 'disinclination to travel' when the FCDO has not advised against travel, and that cancelling early can forfeit a refund. Read your policy wording, since cover varies, and this is not insurance advice.
Does Portugal have the most burned area in the EU?
Not in hectares for 2025: Spain burned 393,079 against about 278,000 for Portugal on EFFIS figures. As a share of land Portugal leads, at about 3.0% against 0.8% (derived). In 2017 Portugal's 563,530 hectares were the EU's largest.
Are Madeira's hiking trails open after the 2024 fire?
The PR1 through-route from Pico do Arieiro to Pico Ruivo reopened on 1 May 2026, one-way beyond Pedra Rija and by hourly slot. PR1.3 has no reopening date, and a booking is required on all 42 classified trails.