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ES · Spain · –

A Gudiña fire, September 2020 A Gudiña

Out · last detection 13 Sept 2020, 02:24 UTC

The fire started on 12 September 2020 in A Gudiña, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 159 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 12 September 2020 at 20:47 and declared extinguished on 16 September 2020.

It is the 92th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 62 in Spain in 2020, of 89.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
159ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
12 Sept 2020 – 13 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
12 Sept
2020
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
107MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Sept13 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

13 Sept 2020 · 107 MW · 10

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
39km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.5 mm on 14 Sept.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. A Gudiña 1,197 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the centre where it started
    159 ha reached on 13 Sept
    0.9 %

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 land56 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland28 %
  • Agricultural areas16 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 12 September 2020 and burned 164 ha (the satellite measured 159 ha).

MITECO, Estadística General de Incendios Forestales (EGIF). This is the agency’s consolidated statistic: it measures the area in its own way, which is why it can differ from the satellite.

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)
12 Sept 29.9 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Sept 30.4 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Sept after 26.1 °C 45 % 61 km/h 5.5 mm Moderate 21

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 31.2, a minimum humidity of 24% and 22 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 35.

FWI at the start 31.2
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 22
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Esgos fire, October 2017
548 ha 1 day FWI 31.2 Min. humidity 24 % 54 km away, in 2017

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.0 mm on 16 Oct.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
676 ha
median area
29 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 21 of 35 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 159 ha against a median of 676 ha. It lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

In 14 of 35, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

5.5 mmfirst rain
14 Septthe day after it ended
39km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Sept, and on 14 Sept 5.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 21 of 35, with a median of 3.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Sept 2020
After · 20 Sept 2020

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 14 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1047 µg/m³
10 Sept12 Sept14 Sept16 Sept
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 · 10Every 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 Spain

Frequently asked questions

How long did the A Gudiña fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 September 2020 and 13 September 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 12 September 2020 at 20:47 and declared extinguished on 16 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 159 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered A Gudiña (159 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in A Gudiña and came within 3.8 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 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Spain (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 35. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 676 ha; 29 % went past 1,000 ha. In 14 of 35, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.

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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night 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
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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. 10 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 164 official ha against 159 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.