El Paso fire, August 2016 El Paso, Fuencaliente de la Palma, Villa de Mazo
The fire started on 3 August 2016 in El Paso, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,629 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 3 August 2016 at 14:14 and declared extinguished on 13 October 2016.
The largest in Spain in 2016, of 69.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Puntagorda · 2023Garafía · 2020
- Burnt area
- 4,629ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Aug 2016 – 7 Aug 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 3 Aug
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 253
- in a single hotspot: 203 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.5GW
- 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 more than two months 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?
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
-
2,397 ha reached on 3 Aug18 %
-
Fuencaliente de la Palma 1,965 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the centre1,536 ha reached on 5 Aug27 %
-
Villa de Mazo 5,131 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the centre602 ha reached on 5 Aug8.4 %
-
Los Llanos de Aridane 20,582 inhabitants · 5.4 km from the centre109 ha reached on 5 Aug3.0 %
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
- Coniferous forest69 %
- Other natural land25 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub5.9 %
- Agricultural areas0.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 73 %
- LIC Cumbre Vieja ES7020011
- LIC Tamanca ES7020022
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 3 August 2016 and burned 4,648 ha (the satellite measured 4,629 ha).
- El Paso Jedey 3 August 2016 · 14:14 4,648 ha · extinguished on 13 October 2016 · 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 de La Palma · Incendio de Jedey · Incendio de Fuencaliente y El Paso
- Official area reported: 4,864 ha (the satellite measured 4,629 ha)
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 12 August 2016
Sources
- Finalizada la restauracion de las zonas afectadas por el incendio que arraso el sur de La Palma en 2016 — eltime.es, 10 October 2017
- Controlado el incendio de La Palma nueve dias despues de iniciarse — Diario de Avisos, 12 August 2016
- El Gobierno de Canarias declara controlado el incendio de La Palma y baja la emergencia a nivel I — 112 Canarias, 12 August 2016
- La superficie afectada en el incendio de La Palma supera las 4.800 hectareas, el 6,8% de la isla — 112 Canarias, 8 August 2016
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 14.9 °C | 73 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Aug | 15.2 °C | 80 % | 72 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Aug | 16.3 °C | 77 % | 71 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 6 Aug | 16.1 °C | 72 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 7 Aug | 15.5 °C | 81 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 8 Aug after | 16.5 °C | 81 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 9 Aug after | 16.1 °C | 83 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 10 Aug after | 16.7 °C | 71 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 11 Aug after | 15.1 °C | 81 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Aug after | 15.1 °C | 82 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Aug after | 15.6 °C | 78 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Aug after | 15.7 °C | 77 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 15 Aug after | 15.4 °C | 80 % | 67 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Aug after | 15.4 °C | 78 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 17 Aug after | 15.1 °C | 81 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
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.
Detections table · 253Every 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 El Paso fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2016 and 7 August 2016: 5 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 3 August 2016 at 14:14 and declared extinguished on 13 October 2016.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,629 hectares (46.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: El Paso (2,397 ha, 18 %); Fuencaliente de la Palma (1,536 ha, 27 %); Villa de Mazo (602 ha, 8.4 %); Los Llanos de Aridane (109 ha, 3.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.6 km of the centre of Fuencaliente de la Palma, 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 16.3 °C, humidity dropped to 72 % and gusts hit 72 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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. 253 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 4,648 official ha against 4,629 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.