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Benacazón fire, August 2020 Benacazón, Sanlúcar la Mayor

Out · last detection 27 Aug 2020, 14:05 UTC

The fire started on 27 August 2020 in Benacazón, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 133 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Sevilla since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 70 in Spain in 2020, of 89.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.5 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
133ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
27 Aug 2020 – 27 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
27 Aug
2020
Heat detections
8
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
38MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Aug27 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

27

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
32km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 36 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. Benacazón 7,363 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the town where it started
    109 ha reached on 27 Aug
    3.4 %
  2. Sanlúcar la Mayor
    25 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub79 %
  • Agricultural areas21 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 65 %

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.

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 27 August 2020 and burned 96 ha (the satellite measured 133 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)
27 Aug 37.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Aug after 34.2 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Aug after 30.1 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Aug after 32.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Aug after 33.1 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Sept after 30.7 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Sept after 30.8 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept after 35.2 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Sept after 35.3 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Sept after 34.9 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Sept after 35.5 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Aug 2020
After · 3 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 25 August 2020 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1034 µg/m³
252627282930
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 · 8Every 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 Benacazón fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 27 August 2020 and 27 August 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 133 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Benacazón (109 ha, 3.4 %); Sanlúcar la Mayor (25 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.2 km of Benacazón. 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 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

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.