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ES · Spain · –

El Campillo fire, July 2017 El Campillo, Minas de Riotinto

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2017, 02:06 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2017 in El Campillo, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 777 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 3 July 2017 at 14:13 and declared extinguished on 7 July 2017.

It is the 14th largest in Huelva since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 34 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
777ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
3 Jul 2017 – 4 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
3 Jul
2017
Heat detections
17
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
36MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul4 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

4 Jul 2017 · 36 MW · 17

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
39km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.5% of the area of London (7.8 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. El Campillo where it started
    779 ha reached on 4 Jul
    8.6 %
  2. Minas de Riotinto 3,698 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub41 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland33 %
  • Coniferous forest15 %
  • Artificial surfaces8.6 %
  • Agricultural areas2.3 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area0.80 ha
Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.80 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 3 July 2017 and burned 777 ha (the satellite measured 777 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.

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 13 % of the area in Spain

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
3 Jul 36.0 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Jul 32.7 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Jul after 27.6 °C 42 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Jul after 27.6 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Jul after 27.7 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
8 Jul after 30.4 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Jul after 32.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Jul after 32.3 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Jul after 37.5 °C 10 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Jul after 41.9 °C 6 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jul after 40.9 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
14 Jul after 40.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 61.4, a minimum humidity of 17% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 33.

FWI at the start 61.4
Minimum humidity 17 %
Days without rain 13
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Trigueros fire, June 2019
1,649 ha 1 day FWI 58.1 Min. humidity 16 % 32 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
470 ha
median area
33 %
went past 1,000 ha
3.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 5 of 33 had it)

It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 1 day.

Only 13 of its 33 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 28 of 33, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.0 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
39km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 4 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 5 of 33, with a median of 3.0 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Jun 2017
After · 11 Jul 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 5 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1035 µg/m³
1 Jul3 Jul5 Jul7 Jul
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 · 17Every 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 El Campillo fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 3 July 2017 and 4 July 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 3 July 2017 at 14:13 and declared extinguished on 7 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 777 hectares (7.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: El Campillo (779 ha, 8.6 %); Minas de Riotinto (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.9 km of the centre of Minas de Riotinto, 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 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 33. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 470 ha; 33 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 13 of its 33 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 28 of 33, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.0 mm.

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.

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 17 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 777 official ha against 777 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.