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Hellín fire, July 2020 Hellín

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2020, 01:59 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2020 in Hellín, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 295 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 22 July 2020 at 16:41 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2020.

It is the 7th largest in Albacete since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 37 in Spain in 2020, of 89.

The power measured by the satellite is low (0.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
295ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
23 Jul 2020 – 23 Jul 2020
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2020
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 1 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high
35km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Hellín 30,836 inhabitants · 5.9 km from the town where it started
    296 ha reached on 23 Jul
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

  • Sclerophyllous scrub74 %
  • Other natural land13 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland11 %
  • Agricultural areas2.0 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 22 July 2020 and burned 300 ha (the satellite measured 295 ha).

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)
23 Jul 35.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jul after 36.0 °C 26 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jul after 35.1 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jul after 37.8 °C 22 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jul after 36.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Jul after 37.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jul after 35.6 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jul after 37.2 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Jul after 40.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Aug after 40.3 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Aug after 39.6 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 16 Jul 2020
After · 30 Jul 2020

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 · Copernicus

On 24 July 2020 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
212223242526
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 1Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Spain ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Hellín fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2020 and 23 July 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 22 July 2020 at 16:41 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 295 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Hellín (296 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.9 km of Hellín. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 35 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

Satellite cross-check

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

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.