Laza fire, August 2022 Laza, Chandrexa de Queixa, Montederramo
The fire started on 9 August 2022 in Laza, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,634 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 9 August 2022 at 22:01 and declared extinguished on 17 August 2022.
It is the 7th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 16 in Spain in 2022, of 196.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,634ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 7days
- 9 Aug 2022 – 15 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 48
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 109MW
- 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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.1 mm on 16 Aug.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2017, 36 ha in 2020.
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
-
2,983 ha reached on 11 Aug14 %
-
Chandrexa de Queixa 467 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre425 ha2.5 %
-
Montederramo 660 inhabitants · 8.1 km from the centre224 ha reached on 11 Aug1.6 %
-
Vilar de Barrio 1,178 inhabitants · 14.3 km from the centre5 ha reached on 13 Aug0.0 %
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 land63 %
- Coniferous forest23 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland10 %
- Broadleaved forest3.3 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Bidueiral de Montederramo ES1130003
- LIC Macizo Central ES1130002
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.
Complex of 2 fires according to EGIF (MITECO)
According to EGIF (MITECO), 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 3,554 ha (the satellite measured 3,634 ha).
EGIF (MITECO) records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Chandrexa de Queixa Taboazas (AS) 9 August 2022 · 19:08 616 ha · extinguished on 17 August 2022 · cause: arson
- 2 Laza Camba 9 August 2022 · 22:01 2,937 ha · extinguished on 17 August 2022 · cause: arson
Total according to EGIF (MITECO): 3,554 ha, 98 % of the 3,634 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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 Laza y Chandrexa · Incendio de Laza-Camba · Incendio de Laza (Ourense)
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Laza 10 August 2022
- Chandrexa de Queixa (Ourense) 10 August 2022
- Declared extinguished: 17 August 2022
Sources
- Extinguido el incendio de Laza después de quemar 2.100 hectáreas durante una semana — COPE, 17 August 2022
- Los fuegos de Laza y Chandrexa (Ourense) se unen en un incendio que arrasa 2.100 hectáreas — El Español (Quincemil), 11 August 2022
- Grandes Incendios Forestales en España durante 2022 — edu.forestry.es (listado de Grandes Incendios Forestales 2022)
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Aug | 28.1 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 10 Aug | 23.7 °C | 46 % | 49 km/h | 8.7 mm | Very low 4 |
| 11 Aug | 25.2 °C | 32 % | 39 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 12 Aug | 24.5 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 13 Aug | 23.1 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 14 Aug | 18.1 °C | 52 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 15 Aug | 18.8 °C | 42 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 16 Aug after | 12.9 °C | 75 % | 54 km/h | 10.1 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 10 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 24 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 · 48Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,090 haVilariño de ConsoJuly 2022 · 10 days · 9 km away
- 30,754 haChandrexa de QueixaAugust 2025 · 20 days · 11 km away
- 24,471 haMonterreiAugust 2025 · 8 days · 24 km away
- 12,026 haA MezquitaAugust 2025 · 9 days · 28 km away
- 3,127 haChaves BusteloJuly 2022 · 5 days · 35 km away
- 3,493 haVilarelho Da RaiaAugust 2025 · 2 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Laza fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 9 August 2022 and 15 August 2022: 7 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 9 August 2022 at 22:01 and declared extinguished on 17 August 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,634 hectares (36.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Laza (2,983 ha, 14 %); Chandrexa de Queixa (425 ha, 2.5 %); Montederramo (224 ha, 1.6 %); Vilar de Barrio (5 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 3.0 km of the centre of Chandrexa de Queixa, 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 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, class 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 48 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 3,554 official ha against 3,634 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.
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.