Cervantes fire, 13 October 2017 Cervantes, Balboa, Villafranca del Bierzo
The fire started on 13 October 2017 in Cervantes, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,627 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 13 October 2017 at 21:49 and declared extinguished on 24 October 2017.
It is the 4th largest in Lugo since 2016 (of 34 with a page). Number 17 in Spain in 2017, of 144.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,627ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 13 Oct 2017 – 17 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 32
- in a single hotspot: 95 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 234MW
- 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 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.9 mm on 18 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
-
1,506 ha reached on 14 Oct5.4 %
-
Balboa 269 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the centre120 ha2.4 %
-
Villafranca del Bierzo 2,591 inhabitants · 17.0 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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
- Broadleaved forest61 %
- Other natural land38 %
- Agricultural areas1.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 92 %
- 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 13 October 2017 and burned 1,893 ha (the satellite measured 1,627 ha).
- Cervantes Vilanova do Pedregal 13 October 2017 · 21:49 1,893 ha · extinguished on 24 October 2017 · cause: negligence
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 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio dos Ancares · lume de Cervantes · incendio de Vilarello
Sources
- Incendio nos Ancares: Viaxe ao corazón queimado da serra — Gciencia (divulgación científica gallega), 22 October 2017
- Temor en Cervantes: "Es como la catástrofe del Prestige del monte" — El Progreso (Lugo), 15 October 2017
- EL FUEGO CALCINA MAS DE 2.100 HECTAREAS EN 16 INCENDIOS EN OURENSE Y PONTEVEDRA — SIRE (blog, recopilación de prensa), 14 October 2017
- Incendios del noroeste de la península ibérica de 2017 — Wikipedia (solo pista)
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Oct | 21.4 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 14 Oct | 23.6 °C | 31 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Oct | 23.4 °C | 30 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Oct | 18.9 °C | 40 % | 66 km/h | 1.1 mm | Low 8 |
| 17 Oct | 14.2 °C | 58 % | 74 km/h | 8.2 mm | Very low 0 |
| 18 Oct after | 9.8 °C | 65 % | 41 km/h | 12.9 mm | Very low 0 |
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 136 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 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 · 32Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,434 haPeranzanesSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 26 km away
- 8,001 haAnllares del Sil Páramo del SilAugust 2025 · 12 days · 31 km away
- 13,989 haFolgoso do CourelJuly 2022 · 10 days · 32 km away
- 1,550 haDegañaOctober 2017 · 5 days · 35 km away
- 3,251 haIbias15 October 2017 · 3 days · 36 km away
- 37,831 haLarouco Vilamartín de ValdeorrasAugust 2025 · 15 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cervantes fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 October 2017 and 17 October 2017: 5 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 13 October 2017 at 21:49 and declared extinguished on 24 October 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,627 hectares (16.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cervantes (1,506 ha, 5.4 %); Balboa (120 ha, 2.4 %); Villafranca del Bierzo (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.9 km of the centre of Balboa, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 23.6 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 74 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 32 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,893 official ha against 1,627 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- 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.