La Tebaida fire, April 2017 Ponferrada
The fire started on 18 April 2017 in Ponferrada, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,234 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 19 April 2017 at 08:13 and declared extinguished on 23 April 2017.
It is the 19th largest in León since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 21 in Spain in 2017, of 144.
- Burnt area
- 1,234ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 18 Apr 2017 – 22 Apr 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Apr
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 80
- in a single hotspot: 85 MW
- Danger at start
- 9
- Low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 940MW
- sum of detected power
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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 24 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
1,234 ha reached on 18 Apr4.4 %
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
- Other natural land49 %
- Broadleaved forest45 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland5.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 30 %
- ZEPA Montes Aquilanos ES4130022
- LIC Montes Aquilanos y Sierra de Teleno ES4130117
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), 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,267 ha (the satellite measured 1,234 ha).
- Ponferrada La Batuda 19 April 2017 · 08:13 1,251 ha · extinguished on 23 April 2017 · cause: rekindling
- Ponferrada Ordiales 18 April 2017 · 09:30 16 ha · extinguished on 18 April 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 Bouzas · Incendio del Valle del Silencio · Incendio de Peñalba de Santiago
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Bouzas (Tebaida berciana 19 April 2017 1,119 ha
- Santalavilla (Ponferrada) 19 April 2017 691 ha
Sources
- Evolución del incendio forestal originado el día 19 de abril en el municipio de Bouzas (León) — Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (oficial), 20 April 2017 · official source
- La Tebaida se recupera tras el incendio de 2017 — El Bierzo Digital, 14 October 2020
- El ganadero de Bouzas tendrá que declarar como imputado por el incendio de la Tebaida — La Nueva Crónica, 16 November 2017
- La Policía Nacional identifica al ganadero de Bouzas como principal sospechoso del incendio de la Tebaida — Info Bierzo, 2 May 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Apr | 18.8 °C | 29 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 19 Apr | 16.7 °C | 21 % | 72 km/h | 0.3 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 20 Apr | 17.6 °C | 23 % | 77 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 21 Apr | 19.1 °C | 17 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 22 Apr | 19.4 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 23 Apr after | 20.9 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 24 Apr after | 19.4 °C | 38 % | 50 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 6 |
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 24 April 2017 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 80Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,241 haLlamas de Cabrera PonferradaAugust 2025 · 13 days · 7 km away
- 4,416 haPuente de Domingo FlórezAugust 2025 · 4 days · 14 km away
- 1,708 haBenuzaOctober 2017 · 2 days · 15 km away
- 10,927 haEncinedoAugust 2017 · 6 days · 22 km away
- 3,619 haLuyego28 August 2022 · 5 days · 22 km away
- 25,953 haPorto de Sanabria PortoAugust 2025 · 17 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the La Tebaida fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 18 April 2017 and 22 April 2017: 5 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 19 April 2017 at 08:13 and declared extinguished on 23 April 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,234 hectares (12.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ponferrada (1,234 ha, 4.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 9.9 km of Ponferrada. 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 19.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 77 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 17, 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
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
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.