Berja fire, January 2021 Berja
The fire started on 22 January 2021 in Berja, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 715 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 22 January 2021 at 14:22 and declared extinguished on 27 January 2021.
It is the 8th largest in Almeria since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 17 in Spain in 2021, of 122.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.4 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
- 715ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 22 Jan 2021 – 23 Jan 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 12
- in a single hotspot: 23 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 72MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
23 Jan 2021 · 72 MW · 12
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 one day 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.
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
-
716 ha reached on 23 Jan3.8 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub69 %
- Coniferous forest18 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland8.8 %
- Other natural land3.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Sierras de Gádor y Enix ES6110008
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 22 January 2021 and burned 625 ha (the satellite measured 715 ha).
- Berja Barranco de Castala 22 January 2021 · 14:22 625 ha · extinguished on 27 January 2021 · 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Jan | 10.9 °C | 39 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 23 Jan | 11.3 °C | 37 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 24 Jan after | 15.0 °C | 33 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 25 Jan after | 13.1 °C | 59 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 26 Jan after | 16.1 °C | 57 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 27 Jan after | 17.4 °C | 50 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 28 Jan after | 18.9 °C | 32 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 29 Jan after | 20.4 °C | 27 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 30 Jan after | 14.0 °C | 31 % | 61 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 31 Jan after | 13.3 °C | 59 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 1 Feb after | 17.7 °C | 28 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 2 Feb after | 18.3 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
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 23 January 2021 the air beside the fire reached 14 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 · 12Every 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 Berja fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 22 January 2021 and 23 January 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 22 January 2021 at 14:22 and declared extinguished on 27 January 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 715 hectares (7.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Berja (716 ha, 3.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Berja and came within 4.9 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 11.3 °C, humidity dropped to 37 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very 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. 12 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 625 official ha against 715 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.