Ibias fire, 15 October 2017 Ibias, Cangas del Narcea, Allande
The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Ibias, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,251 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 October 2017 at 22:25 and declared extinguished on 6 November 2017.
It is the 2th largest in Asturias since 2016 (of 225 with a page). Number 6 in Spain in 2017, of 144.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,251ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 15 Oct 2017 – 17 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 129
- in a single hotspot: 286 MW
- Danger at start
- 19
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 816MW
- 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 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.1 mm on 18 Oct.
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
-
2,055 ha reached on 15 Oct6.2 %
-
Cangas del Narcea 11,282 inhabitants · 21.6 km from the centre798 ha reached on 15 Oct1.0 %
-
Allande 1,506 inhabitants · 22.1 km from the centre400 ha reached on 16 Oct1.2 %
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 land79 %
- Broadleaved forest19 %
- Agricultural areas1.6 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland0.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 24 %
- ZEPA Fuentes del Narcea y del Ibias ES0000055
- LIC Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias ES1200056
- ZEPA + LIC Muniellos ES1200002
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 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 4.8 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (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 14 October 2017 and burned 3,380 ha (the satellite measured 3,251 ha).
- Ibias El Corzo 14 October 2017 · 22:25 3,380 ha · extinguished on 6 November 2017 · 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.
Checked against the press
Checked on 30 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendio de Seroiro · incendio de Ibias · incendio cerca de Muniellos
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Seroiro (Ibias) 15 October 2017
- Corondeño (Allande) 15 October 2017
- Fonduveigas / Fondos de Vega (Degaña) 11 October 2017
Sources
- Asturias y Galicia recibiran 1,5 millones por los incendios de octubre 2017 — RTPA, 28 September 2018
- Los sectores ganadero y apicola, afectados por los incendios en Ibias — RTPA, 21 October 2017
- El Principado contabiliza 27 incendios forestales en 12 concejos — RTPA (television publica asturiana), 18 October 2017
- La Unidad Militar de Emergencias se desplaza a Asturias para controlar 15 incendios activos — elDiario.es, 15 October 2017
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Oct | 22.3 °C | 35 % | 80 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 16 Oct | 18.2 °C | 37 % | 81 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 17 Oct | 13.8 °C | 54 % | 71 km/h | 3.4 mm | Very low 2 |
| 18 Oct after | 8.7 °C | 69 % | 45 km/h | 9.1 mm | Very low 0 |
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 16 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 126 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 79: 5.3 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 · 129Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,985 haIbias15 October 2017 · 3 days · 8 km away
- 1,550 haDegañaOctober 2017 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 2,362 haAllande29 March 2023 · 3 days · 25 km away
- 8,001 haAnllares del Sil Páramo del SilAugust 2025 · 12 days · 29 km away
- 2,434 haPeranzanesSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 32 km away
- 4,285 haVillablinoAugust 2025 · 11 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ibias fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 17 October 2017: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 October 2017 at 22:25 and declared extinguished on 6 November 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,251 hectares (32.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ibias (2,055 ha, 6.2 %); Cangas del Narcea (798 ha, 1.0 %); Allande (400 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Ibias and came within 3.6 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 22.3 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 81 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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. 129 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 3,380 official ha against 3,251 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 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 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.