How long did the Cervantes fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 12 October 2017 and 15 October 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 551 hectares (5.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Cervantes (551 ha, 2.0 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.6 km of Cervantes. 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 24.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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.

ES · Spain · 2017-10-12 → 2017-10-15

Cervantes fire, 12 October 2017 Cervantes

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2017, 02:56 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2017 in Cervantes, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 551 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Lugo since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 48 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

Burnt area: 551ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 12 Oct 2017 – 15 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 12 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 51; in a single hotspot: 108 MW
Danger at start: 20; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Oct 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct15 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

13141516

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

The weather it burned in

25°high

55km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.8 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

Cervantes 1,142 inhabitants · 15.6 km from the town where it started

551 ha reached on 13 Oct

2.0 %

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 land47 %
Broadleaved forest44 %
Scrub and transitional woodland4.6 %
Agricultural areas4.6 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

ZEPA Ancares ES0000374
LIC Ancares - Courel ES1120001

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 12 October 2017 and burned 864 ha (the satellite measured 551 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Cervantes Vilarello 12 October 2017 · 22:10 864 ha · extinguished on 19 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)
12 Oct	21.5 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
13 Oct	21.0 °C	29 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
14 Oct	22.5 °C	29 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
15 Oct	24.7 °C	24 %	55 km/h	0.2 mm	High 25
16 Oct after	18.2 °C	39 %	43 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 14
17 Oct after	12.8 °C	55 %	38 km/h	11.8 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 Oct 2017

After · 22 Oct 2017

Before After

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 16 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 136 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak136 µg/m³

Days over the guideline4 days

PM10171 µg/m³

WHO 15

10111213141516171819

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 · 51Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Spain ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cervantes fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 12 October 2017 and 15 October 2017: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 551 hectares (5.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Cervantes (551 ha, 2.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 15.6 km of Cervantes. 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 24.7 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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

MITECO · Incendios forestales ↗
Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned