Ferreruela fire, August 2016 Ferreruela, Olmillos de Castro
The fire started on 24 August 2016 in Ferreruela, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 399 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 17th largest in Zamora since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 31 in Spain in 2016, of 69.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 399ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 24 Aug 2016 – 24 Aug 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Aug
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 20
- in a single hotspot: 123 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 915MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
24 Aug 2016 · 915 MW · 20
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 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 26 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
329 ha reached on 24 Aug3.5 %
-
Olmillos de Castro 182 inhabitants · 6.5 km from the centre71 ha reached on 24 Aug1.0 %
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 land71 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub27 %
- Broadleaved forest1.8 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 24 August 2016 and burned 295 ha (the satellite measured 399 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Ferreruela El Carrizal 24 August 2016 · 02:13 295 ha · extinguished on 26 August 2016 · 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Aug | 33.3 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 1.2 mm | High 35 |
| 25 Aug after | 32.0 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Aug after | 29.0 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 3.5 mm | Low 10 |
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 24 August 2016 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.6 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 · 20Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,459 haPuercas Gallegos del RíoAugust 2025 · 3 days · 7 km away
- 34,013 haLosacio TábaraJuly 2022 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 1,929 haGallegos del RíoAugust 2020 · 2 days · 10 km away
- 3,087 haPino del OroJuly 2017 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 28,585 haSierra de la Culebra Ferreras de ArribaJune 2022 · 9 days · 22 km away
- 1,645 haAlmaraz de DueroJuly 2022 · 2 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ferreruela fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 August 2016 and 24 August 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 399 hectares (4.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ferreruela (329 ha, 3.5 %); Olmillos de Castro (71 ha, 1.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ferreruela and came within 2.6 km of its centre. 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 33.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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. 20 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 295 official ha against 399 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- 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.
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.