Gavilanes fire, June 2019 Pedro Bernardo, Gavilanes
The fire started on 28 June 2019 in Gavilanes, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,493 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 28 June 2019 at 13:15 and declared extinguished on 5 July 2019.
It is the 9th largest in Ávila since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 6 in Spain in 2019, of 102.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,493ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 28 Jun 2019 – 1 Jul 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 28 Jun
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 110
- in a single hotspot: 197 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 685MW
- 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 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 4 Jul.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 12 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
-
Pedro Bernardo 743 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre1,060 ha reached on 29 Jun15 %
-
435 ha reached on 28 Jun15 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub86 %
- Coniferous forest11 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland1.7 %
- Other natural land0.9 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA + LIC Valle del Tiétar ES4110115 · ES0000184
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.20 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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 28 June 2019 and burned 1,415 ha (the satellite measured 1,493 ha).
- Gavilanes El Jaral 28 June 2019 · 13:15 1,415 ha · extinguished on 5 July 2019 · 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 Gavilanes · Incendio de Gavilanes y Pedro Bernardo
- Official area reported: 1,415 ha (the satellite measured 1,493 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 5 July 2019
Sources
- 130.000 kilos de paja contra la erosión del incendio de Gavilanes y Pedro Bernardo — AvilaRed, 16 October 2019
- El incendio de Gavilanes quemó más de 1.400 hectáreas — El Español, 7 July 2019
- El incendio de Gavilanes-Pedro Bernardo ha quemado 1.400 hectáreas en el sur de Ávila — elDiario.es, 1 July 2019
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jun | 33.5 °C | 13 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Jun | 32.5 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 41 |
| 30 Jun | 29.7 °C | 23 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Jul | 27.1 °C | 19 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 2 Jul after | 27.5 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Jul after | 26.3 °C | 27 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Jul after | 24.0 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 2.2 mm | Moderate 12 |
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 · 110Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,532 haSanta Cruz del ValleAugust 2022 · 4 days · 8 km away
- 977 haHoyocaseroAugust 2017 · 2 days · 12 km away
- 2,231 haMombeltránJuly 2025 · 3 days · 13 km away
- 1,615 haNavaluengaJuly 2025 · 4 days · 23 km away
- 23,078 haNavalacruzAugust 2021 · 7 days · 25 km away
- 63,974 haBurgohondo El BarracoJuly 2026 · 19 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gavilanes fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 28 June 2019 and 1 July 2019: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 28 June 2019 at 13:15 and declared extinguished on 5 July 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,493 hectares (14.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pedro Bernardo (1,060 ha, 15 %); Gavilanes (435 ha, 15 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 0.7 km of the centre of Pedro Bernardo, 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 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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. 110 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,415 official ha against 1,493 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 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.