Skip to content
worldfires
ES · Spain ·

Los Tojos fire, 1 March 2021 Los Tojos, Comunidad de Campoo y Cabuérniga

Out · last measured on 1 Mar 2021

The fire started on 1 March 2021 in Los Tojos, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 120 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 146th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 103 in Spain in 2021, of 120.

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
120ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
1 Mar 2021 – 1 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
1 Mar
2021
Danger at start
0
Very low · FWI index
Natura 2000
100%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

13°high
40km/h · peak gust
48%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 5 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Los Tojos 369 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre where it started
    118 ha
    1.3 %
  2. Comunidad de Campoo y Cabuérniga 5.2 km from the centre
    2 ha
    0.0 %

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 land81 %
  • Broadleaved forest19 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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.

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)
1 Mar 13.2 °C 48 % 40 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 0
2 Mar after 12.8 °C 58 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 0
3 Mar after 12.9 °C 53 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 0
4 Mar after 13.1 °C 56 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
5 Mar after 8.0 °C 81 % 28 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 1

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 0.4, a minimum humidity of 48% and rain the day before. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 28.

FWI at the start 0.4
Minimum humidity 48 %
Days without rain 0
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ruente fire, February 2021
201 ha 1 day FWI 1.0 Min. humidity 48 % 10 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 7.6 mm on 22 Feb.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
188 ha
median area
0 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 28 of 28 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 120 ha against a median of 188 ha. It lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 6.4 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

2.9 mmfirst rain
5 Mar4 days after it ended
40km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Mar, and on 5 Mar 2.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 28 of 28, with a median of 6.4 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Feb 2021
After · 8 Mar 2021

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 4 March 2021 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1055 µg/m³
27 Feb1 Mar3 Mar
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Spain

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Los Tojos fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 1 March 2021 and 1 March 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 120 hectares (1.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Los Tojos (118 ha, 1.3 %); Comunidad de Campoo y Cabuérniga (2 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Los Tojos and came within 3.4 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 13.2 °C, humidity dropped to 48 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 0, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 28. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 188 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 6.4 mm.

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.

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. No 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.