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Cabrales fire, August 2025 Cabrales, Onís, Posada de Valdeón

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2025, 13:37 UTC

The fire started on 12 August 2025 in Cabrales, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,181 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Asturias since 2016 (of 225 with a page). Number 42 in Spain in 2025, of 158.

Burnt area
1,181ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
12 Aug 2025 – 15 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
12 Aug
2025
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
8
Low · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Aug15 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

12131516

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
40km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.7 mm on 18 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Cabrales 1,884 inhabitants · 5.3 km from the town where it started
    756 ha reached on 12 Aug
    3.2 %
  2. Onís 739 inhabitants · 4.3 km from the town
    302 ha reached on 16 Aug
    4.0 %
  3. Posada de Valdeón 392 inhabitants · 7.4 km from the town
    123 ha reached on 16 Aug
    0.8 %

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 land90 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland9.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 99 %

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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendio de Camarmeña · Incendio de Cabrales · Incendio entre Posada de Valdeón y Poncebos
Official area reported: 1,222 ha (the satellite measured 1,181 ha)

Sources

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)
12 Aug 30.1 °C 33 % 40 km/h 1.1 mm Low 8
13 Aug 22.4 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm Low 7
14 Aug 23.0 °C 88 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
15 Aug 33.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Aug after 26.0 °C 36 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
17 Aug after 26.8 °C 38 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
18 Aug after 16.6 °C 96 % 18 km/h 3.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Aug 2025
After · 22 Aug 2025

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 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 192 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 96: 6.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak192 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM10290 µg/m³
Optical depth2.48
101112131415161718
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 · 115Every 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 Cabrales fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2025 and 15 August 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,181 hectares (11.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cabrales (756 ha, 3.2 %); Onís (302 ha, 4.0 %); Posada de Valdeón (123 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.3 km of Onís. 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 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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
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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.