Castro Caldelas fire, August 2017 Castro Caldelas, Chandrexa de Queixa
The fire started on 22 August 2017 in Castro Caldelas, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 235 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 22 August 2017 at 18:27 and declared extinguished on 26 August 2017.
It is the 66th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 87 in Spain in 2017, of 144.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.0 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
- 235ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 22 Aug 2017 – 25 Aug 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Aug
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 32MW
- 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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 26 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
124 ha reached on 23 Aug1.4 %
-
Chandrexa de Queixa 467 inhabitants · 8.8 km from the centre112 ha reached on 23 Aug0.6 %
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 land86 %
- Broadleaved forest10 %
- Agricultural areas3.5 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 0.15 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, 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.
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 22 August 2017 and burned 291 ha (the satellite measured 235 ha).
- Castro Caldelas Burgo (O) 22 August 2017 · 18:27 291 ha · extinguished on 26 August 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug | 25.8 °C | 34 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Aug | 26.8 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Aug | 21.5 °C | 46 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 25 Aug | 23.1 °C | 38 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 26 Aug after | 23.9 °C | 34 % | 43 km/h | 2.1 mm | Low 10 |
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 21 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 17 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 · 17Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 30,754 haChandrexa de QueixaAugust 2025 · 20 days · 15 km away
- 7,090 haVilariño de ConsoJuly 2022 · 10 days · 19 km away
- 3,634 haLazaAugust 2022 · 7 days · 22 km away
- 1,987 haPantónSeptember 2025 · 4 days · 25 km away
- 37,831 haLarouco Vilamartín de ValdeorrasAugust 2025 · 15 days · 30 km away
- 13,989 haFolgoso do CourelJuly 2022 · 10 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Castro Caldelas fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 August 2017 to 25 August 2017 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 August 2017 to 23 August 2017. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 22 August 2017 at 18:27 and declared extinguished on 26 August 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 235 hectares (2.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Castro Caldelas (124 ha, 1.4 %); Chandrexa de Queixa (112 ha, 0.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Castro Caldelas and came within 3.2 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 26.8 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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 · 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 August 2017 to 23 August 2017. 17 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 291 official ha against 235 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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 2015, 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.