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Jerte fire, April 2017 Jerte, Tornavacas, Cabezuela del Valle

Out · last detection 17 Apr 2017, 03:08 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2017 in Jerte, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,116 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Cáceres since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 25 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

Burnt area
1,116ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
6days
11 Apr 2017 – 16 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
11 Apr
2017
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Apr 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr16 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1213141617

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

The weather it burned in

17°high
44km/h · peak gust
31%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 18 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Jerte 1,189 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the town where it started
    972 ha reached on 12 Apr
    16 %
  2. Tornavacas 989 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town
    143 ha reached on 16 Apr
    1.9 %
  3. Cabezuela del Valle 2,049 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town
    2 ha
    0.0 %
  4. Hervás 3,898 inhabitants · 7.3 km from the town
    1 ha reached on 12 Apr
    0.0 %

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

  • Other natural land46 %
  • Broadleaved forest43 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub8.3 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland3.1 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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), 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 463 ha (the satellite measured 1,116 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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 2026

We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
incendio del Valle del Jerte · incendios de Jerte y Tornavacas
Official area reported: 945 ha (the satellite measured 1,116 ha)
Declared extinguished: 23 April 2017

Sources

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)
11 Apr 16.2 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
12 Apr 16.4 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Low 6
13 Apr 15.5 °C 38 % 44 km/h 0.5 mm Low 7
14 Apr 13.7 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
15 Apr 16.0 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
16 Apr 16.3 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
17 Apr after 16.6 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
18 Apr after 16.5 °C 28 % 39 km/h 1.2 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Apr 2017
After · 23 Apr 2017

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 14 April 2017 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1037 µg/m³
91011121314151617181920
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 · 107Every 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 Jerte fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 11 April 2017 and 16 April 2017: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,116 hectares (11.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Jerte (972 ha, 16 %); Tornavacas (143 ha, 1.9 %); Cabezuela del Valle (2 ha, 0.0 %); Hervás (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.7 km of Jerte. 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 16.6 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, class Low.
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.