Pico do Fogo
Interesting facts
- About 73,000 years ago the eastern side of Fogo slid into the ocean, raising a tsunami estimated at 170 metres high that struck the neighbouring island of Santiago.
- That ancient collapse explains why the great caldera wall, the Bordeira, rises up to about a kilometre on three sides but is open towards the sea in the east.
- Chã das Caldeiras, the community inside the caldera at about 1,700 metres, is the highest village in Cape Verde and its coolest.
- Winemaking in the caldera is traced to a French count, the Count of Montrond, who stopped on Fogo around 1870 and brought vines with him.
- Many people in the caldera are said to descend from the Count of Montrond, which is often given as the reason for their fair hair and blue eyes.
- The caldera's wines, around 14 percent alcohol, are made from local dark grapes and Moscatel; the first exports went to Brazil and Guinea-Bissau.
- During the 1995 eruption, lava fountains reached about 400 metres and the volcano threw out lava bombs up to 4 metres across as far as 500 metres.
- The only deadly event in the volcano's recorded history came in 1847, when earthquakes accompanying an eruption killed several people.
- Most of Fogo's endemic plants grow in the caldera and on the Bordeira, and two of them, a viper's bugloss and a wallflower, are found only on the crater rim.
- The magma feeding the volcano is stored mainly about 16 to 24 kilometres down, beneath the ocean crust.
Why it is worth it
Pico do Fogo is a steep volcanic cone rising to 2,829 metres from the floor of a giant caldera on the island of Fogo in Cape Verde — the highest point of the archipelago. The caldera, Chã das Caldeiras, measures about 10 km from north to south and 7 km from east to west, and its rim, the Bordeira, rises to about 2,700 metres. Inside it, the dark cone stands over fields of black lava and ash.
Fogo means "fire" in Portuguese, and the island earned the name. It was discovered in 1460 by the Genoese navigator António de Noli and settled by the Portuguese between 1470 and 1490, the second island of the archipelago to be colonised. In 1680 a large summit eruption buried much of the island in ash and made farmland unusable for a time, driving many people to emigrate to neighbouring Brava. The summit itself has not erupted since the 17th or 18th century — sources differ on the date; since then lava has broken out on the flanks, notably in 1951, in 1995, when about 1,300 people living in the caldera fled overnight, and again from 23 November 2014 to 8 February 2015.
That last eruption, lasting 77 days, destroyed about three quarters of the buildings in Portela, Bangaeira and Ilhéu de Losna, the settlements of the caldera; around a thousand people had been living there. The volcano's slopes are farmed for coffee, and wine grapes are grown in the area; since 2014 the peak and the vine have appeared together on the Cape Verdean 200-escudo banknote.
Getting there
The peak rises in the middle of Fogo island, which is about 25 km across. The island's capital, São Filipe, lies on the west coast; São Filipe Airport (SFL), about 17 km from the summit in a straight line, has flights to Praia on Santiago. Ferries link the port of Vale de Cavaleiros, near São Filipe, with Santiago and Brava. The nearest international airport is Nelson Mandela International Airport (RAI) in Praia, about 92 km away across the sea.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Pico do Fogo is an active stratovolcano located on the island of Fogo, Cape Verde, rising to 2,829 metres (9,281 ft) above sea level. The main cone last erupted in 1680, causing mass emigration from the island. A subsidiary vent erupted in 1995. The only deadly eruption was in 1847 when earthquakes killed several people.
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