Ceuta fire, September 2022 Ceuta
The fire started on 8 September 2022 in Ceuta, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 125 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 8 September 2022 at 22:43 and declared extinguished on 10 September 2022.
Number 155 in Spain in 2022, of 196.
- Burnt area
- 125ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 8 Sept 2022 – 9 Sept 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 8 Sept
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 13
- in a single hotspot: 32 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 166MW
- sum of detected power
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 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
125 ha reached on 9 Sept6.1 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub68 %
- Broadleaved forest30 %
- Agricultural areas2.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 73 %
- ZEPA + LIC Calamocarro-Benzú ES6310001
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 8 September 2022 and burned 116 ha (the satellite measured 125 ha).
- Ceuta 8 September 2022 · 22:43 116 ha · extinguished on 10 September 2022 · 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Sept | 29.0 °C | 39 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 9 Sept | 29.6 °C | 50 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Sept after | 28.1 °C | 55 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Sept after | 26.7 °C | 68 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Sept after | 26.3 °C | 74 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 13 Sept after | 26.7 °C | 62 % | 47 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Sept after | 26.4 °C | 58 % | 42 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 15 Sept after | 26.0 °C | 61 % | 40 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Sept after | 26.2 °C | 61 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 17 Sept after | 25.7 °C | 63 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 71 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 19 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 71 % | 59 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
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 10 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 16 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 · 13Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ceuta fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 8 September 2022 and 9 September 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 8 September 2022 at 22:43 and declared extinguished on 10 September 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 125 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ceuta (125 ha, 6.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.8 km of Ceuta. 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 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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
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
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.