Cangas del Narcea fire, 14 October 2017 Cangas del Narcea
The fire started on 14 October 2017 in Cangas del Narcea, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 810 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 15 October 2017 at 01:51 and declared extinguished on 26 October 2017.
It is the 11th largest in Asturias since 2016 (of 225 with a page). Number 33 in Spain in 2017, of 144.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 810ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 14 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 14 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 22
- in a single hotspot: 36 MW
- Danger at start
- 14
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 158MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 17 Oct.
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
-
809 ha reached on 15 Oct1.0 %
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 land88 %
- Broadleaved forest11 %
- Agricultural areas0.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA Fuentes del Narcea y del Ibias ES0000055
- LIC Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias ES1200056
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 15 October 2017 and burned 963 ha (the satellite measured 810 ha).
- Cangas del Narcea Gillon 15 October 2017 · 01:51 963 ha · extinguished on 26 October 2017 · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct | 18.6 °C | 31 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 15 Oct | 19.4 °C | 34 % | 75 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 16 Oct | 15.2 °C | 37 % | 80 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 17 Oct after | 10.7 °C | 54 % | 62 km/h | 3.8 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 16 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 112 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 times the WHO daily 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 · 22Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,285 haVillablinoAugust 2025 · 11 days · 13 km away
- 8,001 haAnllares del Sil Páramo del SilAugust 2025 · 12 days · 17 km away
- 3,251 haIbias15 October 2017 · 3 days · 22 km away
- 2,434 haPeranzanesSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 24 km away
- 2,985 haIbias15 October 2017 · 3 days · 27 km away
- 2,362 haAllande29 March 2023 · 3 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cangas del Narcea fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 14 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 15 October 2017 at 01:51 and declared extinguished on 26 October 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 810 hectares (8.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cangas del Narcea (809 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Cangas del Narcea and came within 12.7 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 19.4 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, 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 · 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. 22 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 963 official ha against 810 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.