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Legarda fire, June 2022 Puente la Reina/Gares, Guirguillano, Zabalza/Zabaltza

Out · last detection 21 Jun 2022, 02:11 UTC

The fire started on 18 June 2022 in Puente la Reina/Gares, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,531 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 15 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Navarre since 2016 (of 26 with a page). Number 12 in Spain in 2022, of 195.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Enériz/Eneritz · 2025Artajona · 2023Pueyo · 2016Ezcabarte · 2026

Burnt area
6,531ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
18 Jun 2022 – 21 Jun 2022
Municipalities hit
15
municipalities
Started on
18 Jun
2022
Heat detections
185
in a single hotspot: 264 MW
Danger at start
68
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.0GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

21 Jun 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Jun21 Jun

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jun 2022 · 172 MW · 2 19 Jun 2022 · 3,985 MW · 179 20 Jun 2022 · 7 MW · 2 21 Jun 2022 · 2 MW · 2
18 Jun 19 Jun 20 Jun 21 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
64km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 34.1 mm on 22 Jun.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.1% of the area of London (65 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Puente la Reina/Gares 2,972 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town where it started
    2,326 ha reached on 19 Jun
    59 %
  2. Guirguillano 75 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    1,242 ha reached on 19 Jun
    50 %
  3. Zabalza/Zabaltza 285 inhabitants · 0.1 km from the town
    737 ha reached on 19 Jun
    52 %
  4. Legarda 143 inhabitants · 0.0 km from the town
    685 ha reached on 19 Jun
    83 %
  5. Obanos 924 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    670 ha reached on 18 Jun
    34 %
  6. Cizur 3,949 inhabitants · 6.1 km from the town
    304 ha reached on 19 Jun
    5.8 %
  7. Belascoáin 124 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town
    296 ha reached on 19 Jun
    48 %
  8. Guesálaz/Gesalatz 462 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town
    63 ha
    0.8 %
  9. Artazu 125 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town
    62 ha reached on 19 Jun
    11 %
  10. Echarri/Etxarri 78 inhabitants · 0.3 km from the town
    47 ha
    20 %
  11. Uterga 177 inhabitants · 0.5 km from the town
    44 ha
    5.2 %
  12. Muruzábal 283 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town
    34 ha
    5.8 %
  13. Salinas de Oro/Jaitz 110 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the town
    19 ha
    1.4 %
  14. Enériz/Eneritz 328 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town
    6 ha reached on 18 Jun
    0.6 %
  15. Bidaurreta 181 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town
    0 ha reached on 19 Jun
    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

  • Agricultural areas33 %
  • Coniferous forest32 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub17 %
  • Broadleaved forest12 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland2.2 %
  • Mixed forest1.9 %
  • Other natural land1.5 %
  • Other land cover1.1 %

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

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
  • Cerca de Eunate / Muruzábal 18 June 2022
  • Entre Uterga y Legarda 18 June 2022

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)
18 Jun 39.6 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
19 Jun 32.3 °C 15 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
20 Jun 30.2 °C 24 % 55 km/h 2.6 mm High 26
21 Jun 30.5 °C 20 % 58 km/h 1.5 mm High 38
22 Jun after 25.5 °C 32 % 47 km/h 34.1 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Jun 2022
After · 28 Jun 2022

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 19 June 2022 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1058 µg/m³
161718192021222324
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 · 185Every 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 Legarda fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 18 June 2022 and 21 June 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,531 hectares (65.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 15 municipalities: Puente la Reina/Gares (2,326 ha, 59 %); Guirguillano (1,242 ha, 50 %); Zabalza/Zabaltza (737 ha, 52 %); Legarda (685 ha, 83 %); Obanos (670 ha, 34 %); Cizur (304 ha, 5.8 %); Belascoáin (296 ha, 48 %); Guesálaz/Gesalatz (63 ha, 0.8 %); Artazu (62 ha, 11 %); Echarri/Etxarri (47 ha, 20 %); Uterga (44 ha, 5.2 %); Muruzábal (34 ha, 5.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.0 km of Guirguillano. 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 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very extreme.
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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 185 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 3 confirmed sources.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.