The fire started on 27 August 2020 in Almonaster la Real, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 16,758 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 7 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 27 August 2020 at 14:08 and declared extinguished on 7 September 2020.
It is the 2th largest in Huelva since 2016 (of 36 with a page). The largest in Spain in 2020, of 89.
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
EGIF (MITECO): 14,954 ha (matched records: 1). Difference between the page and the official record: +12.1%. Matched on 1 November 2026.
27 Aug 2020 to 1 Sept 2020: first and last day with fire on the page.
EGIF (MITECO) declared the fire extinguished on 7 September 2020. Satellites may still see smouldering spots afterwards.
Alert according to EGIF (MITECO): 27 August 2020 at 14:08. Official cause: arson.
First day with fire on the page (satellite or perimeter): 27 August 2020.
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 363 MW.
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
Total radiative power on 29 August 2020; hotspots that day: 238.
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
High of 37.1 °C and minimum humidity of 22% on 27 August 2020; gusts of 51 km/h on 28 August 2020.
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 11 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-08-27 | 26 | 3,569 | 37.1 | 22 | 22 | 20 | 41.8 | 0 | 53.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-28 | 122 | 1,652 | 31.8 | 19.8 | 21 | 23.9 | 50.8 | 0 | 57.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-29 | 238 | 4,063 | 28.4 | 14.9 | 22 | 25 | 50 | 0 | 56.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2020-08-30 | 195 | 2,175 | 31.4 | 16.9 | 16 | 12.7 | 26.6 | 0 | 42.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-08-31 | 41 | 119 | 32.7 | 18.8 | 18 | 17.8 | 29.9 | 0 | 48.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-01 | 4 | 124 | 32.4 | 18.8 | 18 | 14.2 | 33.5 | 0 | 44.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2020-09-02 | 0 | 0 | 31.5 | 17.3 | 30 | 12.7 | 27.7 | 0 | 39 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-03 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 19.1 | 20 | 14.9 | 33.1 | 0 | 43.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-04 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 21.5 | 20 | 14.4 | 35.3 | 0 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-05 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 20.2 | 21 | 9 | 18 | 0 | 38.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-06 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 20.4 | 25 | 15.8 | 35.6 | 0 | 45.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-07 | 0 | 0 | 36.7 | 20.3 | 20 | 14.3 | 34.9 | 0 | 44.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-08 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 21.3 | 24 | 16.4 | 33.1 | 0 | 46.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-09 | 0 | 0 | 32.6 | 19.4 | 28 | 13 | 30.2 | 0 | 41 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-10 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 19.6 | 26 | 8.6 | 19.8 | 0 | 37.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2020-09-11 | 0 | 0 | 33.3 | 19.8 | 28 | 10.4 | 28.1 | 0 | 38.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), EGIF (MITECO), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22 ha in 2016, 189 ha in 2017, 68 ha in 2018.
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
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.
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Inside the perimeter there were about 11 hectares of built-up land and about 500 residents (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
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 27 August 2020 and burned 14,954 ha (the satellite measured 16,758 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.
We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 4.8 % of the area in Spain
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Aug | 37.1 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 28 Aug | 31.8 °C | 21 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 29 Aug | 28.4 °C | 22 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Aug | 31.4 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Aug | 32.7 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Sept | 32.4 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Sept after | 31.5 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Sept after | 34.9 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Sept after | 35.0 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Sept after | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Sept after | 35.8 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Sept after | 36.7 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 9 Sept after | 32.6 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Sept after | 34.0 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 11 Sept after | 33.3 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
It started with an FWI of 53.5, a minimum humidity of 22% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 19.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.7 mm on 24 Aug.
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 14.3 mm on 13 Sept.
It was 15.3 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 2 days.
Only 1 of its 19 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 15 of 19, 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 1.7 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
It was considered over on 1 Sept, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 4 of 19, with a median of 1.7 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
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
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
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.