Fisterra fire, September 2019 Fisterra
The fire started on 6 September 2019 in Fisterra, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 119 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 6 September 2019 at 01:17 and declared extinguished on 7 September 2019.
It is the 19th largest in A Coruña since 2016 (of 20 with a page). Number 85 in Spain in 2019, of 102.
The power measured by the satellite is low (4.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Laxe · 2026Porto do Son · 2016
- Burnt area
- 119ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 6 Sept 2019 – 6 Sept 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 6 Sept
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 4
- in a single hotspot: 4 MW
- Danger at start
- 18
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 18MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
6 Sept 2019 · 18 MW · 4
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 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 16 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
119 ha reached on 6 Sept4.1 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland99 %
- Agricultural areas0.8 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 6 September 2019 and burned 134 ha (the satellite measured 119 ha).
- Fisterra Buxán 6 September 2019 · 01:17 134 ha · extinguished on 7 September 2019 · 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Sept | 22.8 °C | 48 % | 66 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 7 Sept after | 22.5 °C | 49 % | 63 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 8 Sept after | 22.9 °C | 58 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 9 Sept after | 20.1 °C | 62 % | 40 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 10 Sept after | 18.7 °C | 55 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 11 Sept after | 20.8 °C | 58 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 12 Sept after | 26.0 °C | 49 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 13 Sept after | 27.3 °C | 53 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 Sept after | 27.5 °C | 55 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Sept after | 26.7 °C | 60 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Sept after | 24.7 °C | 67 % | 42 km/h | 3.8 mm | Very low 3 |
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 4 September 2019 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 4Every 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 Fisterra fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 6 September 2019 and 6 September 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 6 September 2019 at 01:17 and declared extinguished on 7 September 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 119 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Fisterra (119 ha, 4.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Fisterra and came within 2.9 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 22.8 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 66 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
- 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. 4 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 134 official ha against 119 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.