Garafía fire, August 2020 Garafía
The fire started on 21 August 2020 in Garafía, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,200 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 21 August 2020 at 18:15 and declared extinguished on 21 October 2020.
Number 7 in Spain in 2020, of 89.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Puntagorda · 2023El Paso · 2016
- Burnt area
- 1,200ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 21 Aug 2020 – 23 Aug 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 21 Aug
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 99
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 471MW
- 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 52 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?
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
-
1,205 ha reached on 22 Aug12 %
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 forest47 %
- Other natural land30 %
- Agricultural areas11 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub9.5 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland2.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %
- LIC Barlovento, Garafía, El Paso y Tijarafe ES7020084
- LIC Costa de Hiscaguán ES7020015
- ZEPA Cumbres y acantilados del norte de La Palma ES0000114
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 2020 and burned 1,061 ha (the satellite measured 1,200 ha).
- Garafía Catela 21 August 2020 · 18:15 1,061 ha · extinguished on 21 October 2020 · 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 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio de La Garafía · Gran incendio forestal de Garafía · incendio de La Palma
- Official area reported: 1,183 ha (the satellite measured 1,200 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 21 October 2020
Sources
- La Palma registró 22 incendios forestales en 2020, que afectaron a más de 1.200 hectáreas — Cabildo de La Palma, 21 January 2021 · official source
- El Cabildo da por extinguido el gran incendio forestal de Garafía — Diario Palmero, 22 October 2020
- Dan por controlado el incendio de Garafía — Canarias7, 25 August 2020
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 | 30.6 °C | 19 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Aug | 35.0 °C | 10 % | 93 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Aug | 32.3 °C | 23 % | 97 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 34 % | 111 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 22 % | 91 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Aug after | 37.9 °C | 12 % | 75 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Aug after | 38.4 °C | 17 % | 86 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Aug after | 35.1 °C | 13 % | 105 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 29 Aug after | 25.0 °C | 57 % | 104 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 24 |
| 30 Aug after | 20.9 °C | 57 % | 107 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 31 Aug after | 22.1 °C | 48 % | 102 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 1 Sept after | 23.5 °C | 61 % | 81 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 2 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 41 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
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 · 99Every 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 Garafía fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 21 August 2020 and 23 August 2020: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 21 August 2020 at 18:15 and declared extinguished on 21 October 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,200 hectares (12.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Garafía (1,205 ha, 12 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Garafía and came within 2.5 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 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 97 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.
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. 99 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,061 official ha against 1,200 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 3 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.