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Llanes fire, 20 March 2026 Llanes, Ribadedeva, Peñamellera Alta

Out · last detection 21 Mar 2026, 01:08 UTC

The fire started on 20 March 2026 in Llanes, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 104 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 213th largest in Asturias since 2016 (of 225 with a page). Number 192 in Spain in 2026, of 195.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Cabrales · 2025Rionansa · 2024Llanes · 2023Ribadesella · 2021

Burnt area
104ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
20 Mar 2026 – 21 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
20 Mar
2026
Heat detections
6
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
7MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Mar21 Mar
21 Mar 2026

How it evolved, day by day

20 Mar 2026 · 12 MW · 5 21 Mar 2026 · 1 MW · 1
20 Mar 21 Mar

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
28km/h · peak gust
55%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.5 mm on 25 Mar.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Llanes 13,486 inhabitants · 11.7 km from the town where it started
    102 ha reached on 20 Mar
    0.4 %
  2. Ribadedeva 1,693 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the town
    1 ha
    0.0 %
  3. Peñamellera Alta 500 inhabitants · 7.1 km from the town
    1 ha reached on 21 Mar
    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 land100 %

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

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)
20 Mar 16.7 °C 55 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 1
21 Mar 14.5 °C 69 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 1
22 Mar after 12.9 °C 56 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
23 Mar after 12.1 °C 62 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
24 Mar after 16.3 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
25 Mar after 11.7 °C 77 % 40 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Mar 2026
After · 28 Mar 2026

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 22 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline2 days
PM1028 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
181920212223
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 · 6Every 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 Llanes fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 March 2026 to 21 March 2026 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 March 2026 to 20 March 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Llanes (102 ha, 0.4 %); Ribadedeva (1 ha, 0.0 %); Peñamellera Alta (1 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.7 km of Ribadedeva. 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 16.7 °C, humidity dropped to 55 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very 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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 20 March 2026 to 20 March 2026. 6 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • 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.