Baleira fire, March 2023 Baleira, A Fonsagrada, Ribeira de Piquín
The fire started on 29 March 2023 in Baleira, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,448 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 28 March 2023 at 17:04 and declared extinguished on 31 March 2023.
It is the 5th largest in Lugo since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 8 in Spain in 2023, of 124.
The power measured by the satellite is low (1.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,448ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 29 Mar 2023 – 30 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 29 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 7
- in a single hotspot: 1 MW
- Danger at start
- 8
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 6MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
30 Mar 2023 · 6 MW · 7
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 31 Mar.
This area had burned before
0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2021.
How big is it?
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.
What happened to each town
-
1,075 ha reached on 30 Mar6.4 %
-
A Fonsagrada 3,073 inhabitants · 11.8 km from the centre243 ha reached on 30 Mar0.6 %
-
Ribeira de Piquín 549 inhabitants · 5.4 km from the centre132 ha1.8 %
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 land77 %
- Broadleaved forest23 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 10 %
- LIC A Marronda ES1120004
Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.30 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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 28 March 2023 and burned 1,590 ha (the satellite measured 1,448 ha).
- Baleira Cabreira 28 March 2023 · 17:04 1,590 ha · extinguished on 31 March 2023 · cause: negligence
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.
Checked against the press
Checked on 30 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendio de Baleira, A Fonsagrada y Ribeira de Piquín · incendio de Cabreira (Cubilledo)
- Official area reported: 1,400 ha (the satellite measured 1,448 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 31 March 2023
Sources
- El fuego salto de primavera a otono — El Progreso, 31 December 2023
- Extinguido el incendio de Baleira (Lugo) tras arrasar 1.400 hectareas — eldiario.es, 31 March 2023
- Extinguido el fuego de Baleira, en Lugo, que ha arrasado 1.400 hectareas — Telemadrid, 31 March 2023
- El primer gran incendio del ano obliga a desalojar aldeas en Baleira y A Fonsagrada — El Progreso, 29 March 2023
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Mar | 21.0 °C | 32 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 30 Mar | 16.6 °C | 55 % | 72 km/h | 1.3 mm | Very low 4 |
| 31 Mar after | 14.1 °C | 59 % | 68 km/h | 3.0 mm | Very low 1 |
Before and after, from space
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 31 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
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 · 7Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Baleira fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 29 March 2023 and 30 March 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 28 March 2023 at 17:04 and declared extinguished on 31 March 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,448 hectares (14.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Baleira (1,075 ha, 6.4 %); A Fonsagrada (243 ha, 0.6 %); Ribeira de Piquín (132 ha, 1.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 5.4 km of the centre of Ribeira de Piquín, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 21.0 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 8, class Low.
- 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 · 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.
No changes 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 7 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,590 official ha against 1,448 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.