Lobios fire, 12 September 2020 Lobios
The fire started on 12 September 2020 in Lobios, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,062 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 12 September 2020 at 19:40 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2020.
It is the 12th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 3 in Spain in 2020, of 89.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,062ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 12 Sept 2020 – 15 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 12 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 126
- in a single hotspot: 85 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 629MW
- 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 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.3 mm on 17 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
2,061 ha reached on 13 Sept12 %
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 land89 %
- Mixed forest8.9 %
- Coniferous forest1.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Baixa Limia ES1130001
- ZEPA Baixa Limia - Serra do Xurés ES0000376
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), this fire started on 12 September 2020 and burned 2,026 ha (the satellite measured 2,062 ha).
- Lobios Vilameá 12 September 2020 · 19:40 2,026 ha · extinguished on 17 September 2020 · 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 Lobios · incendio del Xurés · Lobios-Río Caldo
- Official area reported: 2,000 ha (the satellite measured 2,062 ha)
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 17 September 2020
Sources
- La Consellería de Medio Rural informa de la situación de los incendios forestales con datos recogidos hasta las 20,45 h de hoy — Xunta de Galicia (Consellería de Medio Rural), 17 September 2020 · official source
- Ourense registra más del 23% de la superficie ardida en España en 2020 — La Región, 22 October 2020
- Continúan activos ocho incendios en Ourense y dan por estabilizados los que cercaron casas en Cualedro — Galicia Confidencial / GC Diario, 16 September 2020
- Más de 7.500 hectáreas arrasadas por los incendios que afectan a doce municipios de Orense — El Español, 14 September 2020
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Sept | 27.3 °C | 24 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Sept | 27.5 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Sept | 19.7 °C | 62 % | 54 km/h | 3.2 mm | Very low 5 |
| 15 Sept | 19.2 °C | 57 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 16 Sept after | 22.4 °C | 42 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 17 Sept after | 21.0 °C | 45 % | 53 km/h | 8.3 mm | Very low 2 |
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 14 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 times the WHO daily 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 · 126Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,240 haMuíñosOctober 2017 · 2 days · 9 km away
- 3,074 haEntrimoSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 11 km away
- 7,225 haPonte da Barca Entre Ambos-os-Rios, Ermida e GermilJuly 2025 · 11 days · 14 km away
- 6,662 haArcos de Valdevez Soajo8 August 2016 · 9 days · 20 km away
- 2,156 haVieira do Minho Sobradelo da Goma8 August 2016 · 9 days · 33 km away
- 3,893 haMonção MerufeOctober 2017 · 2 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lobios fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 12 September 2020 and 15 September 2020: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 12 September 2020 at 19:40 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,062 hectares (20.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Lobios (2,061 ha, 12 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Lobios and came within 0.9 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 27.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 126 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 2,026 official ha against 2,062 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 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.