Encinedo fire, August 2017 Encinedo, Truchas, Castrillo de Cabrera
The fire started on 21 August 2017 in Encinedo, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 10,927 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 21 August 2017 at 20:48 and declared extinguished on 3 September 2017.
It is the 4th largest in León since 2016 (of 86 with a page). The largest in Spain in 2017, of 144.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,927ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 21 Aug 2017 – 26 Aug 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Aug
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 563
- in a single hotspot: 284 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.0GW
- 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 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.3 mm on 27 Aug.
This area had burned before
4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 385 ha in 2016.
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
-
7,109 ha reached on 22 Aug36 %
-
Truchas 371 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre3,596 ha reached on 23 Aug12 %
-
Castrillo de Cabrera 100 inhabitants · 5.3 km from the centre186 ha reached on 23 Aug1.6 %
-
San Justo 207 inhabitants · 7.0 km from the centre33 ha reached on 23 Aug0.4 %
-
Rosinos de la Requejada 292 inhabitants · 11.8 km from the centre7 ha reached on 23 Aug0.0 %
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
- Other natural land73 %
- Broadleaved forest12 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland8.9 %
- Coniferous forest4.2 %
- Agricultural areas1.1 %
- Mixed forest0.6 %
- Artificial surfaces0.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 15 %
- ZEPA + LIC Sierra de la Cabrera ES4190110 · ES4130024
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 21 August 2017 and burned 9,817 ha (the satellite measured 10,927 ha).
- Encinedo Vallina Pabeiro 21 August 2017 · 20:48 9,817 ha · extinguished on 3 September 2017 · 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.
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 Cabrera · Incendio de Losadilla · Incendio de Encinedo
- Official area reported: 9,964 ha (the satellite measured 10,927 ha)
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 27 August 2017
Sources
- El incendio de Cabrera, el más devastador de 2017 según la UME — La fueya cabreiresa, 8 March 2018
- El incendio de La Cabrera arrasó 9.964 hectáreas según la Junta — iLeón (elDiario.es), 13 September 2017
- El fuego intencionado en La Cabrera devora todo a su paso y sigue fuera de control — leonoticias, 24 August 2017
- Educación Forestal: Incendio en La Cabrera — Educación Forestal
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Aug | 31.4 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Aug | 29.4 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Aug | 28.2 °C | 23 % | 46 km/h | 1.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 24 Aug | 25.9 °C | 30 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 25 Aug | 26.0 °C | 26 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 26 Aug | 23.3 °C | 34 % | 66 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 27 Aug after | 18.9 °C | 49 % | 60 km/h | 6.3 mm | Very low 2 |
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 23 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 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 · 563Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,708 haBenuzaOctober 2017 · 2 days · 13 km away
- 25,953 haPorto de Sanabria PortoAugust 2025 · 17 days · 17 km away
- 26,241 haLlamas de Cabrera PonferradaAugust 2025 · 14 days · 18 km away
- 3,619 haLuyego25 August 2022 · 11 days · 21 km away
- 4,416 haPuente de Domingo FlórezAugust 2025 · 9 days · 26 km away
- 12,735 haCarballeda de ValdeorrasJuly 2022 · 8 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Encinedo fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 21 August 2017 and 26 August 2017: 6 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 21 August 2017 at 20:48 and declared extinguished on 3 September 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 10,927 hectares (109.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Encinedo (7,109 ha, 36 %); Truchas (3,596 ha, 12 %); Castrillo de Cabrera (186 ha, 1.6 %); San Justo (33 ha, 0.4 %); Rosinos de la Requejada (7 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Encinedo and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.4 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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. 563 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 9,817 official ha against 10,927 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.