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Cebreros fire, July 2022 El Hoyo de Pinares, Cebreros, San Bartolomé de Pinares

Out · last detection 22 Jul 2022, 02:31 UTC

The fire started on 16 July 2022 in Cebreros, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,460 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 16 July 2022 at 15:15 and declared extinguished on 18 August 2022.

It is the 3th largest in Ávila since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 15 in Spain in 2022, of 196.

Burnt area
4,460ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
16 Jul 2022 – 21 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
16 Jul
2022
Heat detections
181
in a single hotspot: 132 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jul 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jul21 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
51km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 76 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. El Hoyo de Pinares 2,179 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    2,068 ha reached on 18 Jul
    26 %
  2. Cebreros 3,345 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town where it started
    2,055 ha reached on 16 Jul
    15 %
  3. San Bartolomé de Pinares
    343 ha
    4.6 %

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

  • Coniferous forest38 %
  • Other natural land28 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub14 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland13 %
  • Agricultural areas7.2 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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 16 July 2022 and burned 4,072 ha (the satellite measured 4,460 ha).

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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendio de Cebreros y El Hoyo de Pinares
Official area reported: 4,264 ha (the satellite measured 4,460 ha)
Declared extinguished: 18 August 2022

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)
16 Jul 36.3 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
17 Jul 35.6 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
18 Jul 34.2 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
19 Jul 29.9 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
20 Jul 32.7 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Jul 33.8 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Jul after 33.0 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Jul after 34.4 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jul after 35.6 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Jul after 32.6 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Jul after 30.6 °C 24 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jul after 31.5 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jul after 31.2 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jul after 32.5 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul after 33.1 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
31 Jul after 32.6 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jul 2022
After · 28 Jul 2022

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 19 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1062 µg/m³
14151617181920212223242526
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 · 181Every 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 Cebreros fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2022 and 21 July 2022: 6 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 16 July 2022 at 15:15 and declared extinguished on 18 August 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,460 hectares (44.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: El Hoyo de Pinares (2,068 ha, 26 %); Cebreros (2,055 ha, 15 %); San Bartolomé de Pinares (343 ha, 4.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of El Hoyo de Pinares. 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 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, class Extreme.
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.