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Badajoz fire, July 2017 Badajoz

Out · last detection 16 Jul 2017, 13:02 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2017 in Badajoz, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 165 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Badajoz since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 103 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

Burnt area
165ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
16 Jul 2017 – 16 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
16 Jul
2017
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 39 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
137MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul16 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

16

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
32km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Badajoz 150,209 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the town where it started
    165 ha reached on 16 Jul
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Other natural land65 %
  • Artificial surfaces23 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %

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

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 124 ha (the satellite measured 165 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
16 Jul 39.1 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Jul after 37.5 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Jul after 34.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Jul after 30.2 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jul after 29.3 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jul after 29.9 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jul after 31.8 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jul after 34.3 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul after 35.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jul after 36.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jul after 36.8 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2017
After · 23 Jul 2017

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 18 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak18 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
141516171819
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 · 6Every 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 Badajoz fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2017 and 16 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 165 hectares (1.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Badajoz (165 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.2 km of Badajoz. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class Extreme.
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.

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

Satellite cross-check

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

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.