Llançà fire, July 2021 El Port de la Selva, Llançà
The fire started on 16 July 2021 in Llançà, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 313 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.
Number 38 in Spain in 2021, of 120.
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- Burnt area
- 313ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 16 Jul 2021 – 17 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Jul
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 31
- in a single hotspot: 70 MW
- Danger at start
- 22
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 348MW
- 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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
El Port de la Selva 1,053 inhabitants · 2.4 km from the centre239 ha reached on 16 Jul5.7 %
-
74 ha reached on 16 Jul2.7 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub100 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA + LIC Cap de Creus ES5120007
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.18 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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 16 July 2021 and burned 398 ha (the satellite measured 313 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Llançà Gi-612, Pk 4,5 16 July 2021 · 13:20 398 ha · extinguished on 19 July 2021 · cause: negligence
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jul | 28.0 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 17 Jul | 29.1 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 18 Jul after | 30.1 °C | 35 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 19 Jul after | 29.7 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 20 Jul after | 28.3 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 21 Jul after | 29.2 °C | 46 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 22 Jul after | 28.7 °C | 53 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 23 Jul after | 33.4 °C | 26 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 24 Jul after | 25.9 °C | 44 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 25 Jul after | 25.8 °C | 46 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Jul after | 25.9 °C | 47 % | 33 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 27 Jul after | 28.7 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
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.
Detections table · 31Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Llançà fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 July 2021 and 17 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 313 hectares (3.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: El Port de la Selva (239 ha, 5.7 %); Llançà (74 ha, 2.7 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Llançà and came within 1.7 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 29.1 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 31 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 31 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 398 official ha against 313 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- 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 2020, 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.