Skip to content
worldfires
ES · Spain · →

Degaña fire, October 2017 Degaña, Cangas del Narcea

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

The fire started on 12 October 2017 in Degaña, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,550 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Asturias since 2016 (of 225 with a page). Number 19 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

Burnt area
1,550ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
5days
12 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
12 Oct
2017
Heat detections
162
in a single hotspot: 266 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct16 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516

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

The weather it burned in

21°high
80km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 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

  1. Degaña 768 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town where it started
    1,276 ha reached on 12 Oct
    15 %
  2. Cangas del Narcea 11,282 inhabitants · 18.5 km from the town
    275 ha reached on 12 Oct
    0.3 %

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 land79 %
  • Broadleaved forest20 %

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 11 October 2017 and burned 1,954 ha (the satellite measured 1,550 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendio de Degaña · Incendio de Fondos de Veiga · Incendio de Degaña e Ibias
Official area reported: 1,953 ha (the satellite measured 1,550 ha)

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)
12 Oct 18.6 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
13 Oct 19.1 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
14 Oct 20.1 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
15 Oct 20.9 °C 34 % 75 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
16 Oct 16.7 °C 38 % 80 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 17
17 Oct after 12.2 °C 55 % 62 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Oct 2017
After · 23 Oct 2017

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 144 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 5.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak144 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10194 µg/m³
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 · 162Every 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 Degaña fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 12 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 5 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,550 hectares (15.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Degaña (1,276 ha, 15 %); Cangas del Narcea (275 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.1 km of Degaña. 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 20.9 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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
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.