How long did the Mella fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 February 2025 and 6 February 2025: 5 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,521 hectares (15.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mella (1,511 ha, 4.4 %); Urbano Noris (19 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cuba (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

CU · Cuba · 2025-02-02 → 2025-02-06

Mella fire, February 2025 Mella, Urbano Noris

Out · last detection 6 Feb 2025, 18:15 UTC

The fire started on 2 February 2025 in Mella, Cuba, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,521 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Santiago de Cuba since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 10 in Cuba in 2025, of 27.

The power measured by the satellite is low (15.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 1,521ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 2 Feb 2025 – 6 Feb 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; municipalities
Started on: 2 Feb; 2025
Heat detections: 56; in a single hotspot: 15 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 230MW; sum of detected power

Play back 6 Feb 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Feb6 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2346

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

The weather it burned in

31°high

49km/h · peak gust

51%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 801 ha in 2023, 7 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

Mella where it started

1,511 ha reached on 2 Feb

4.4 %
Urbano Noris

19 ha reached on 1 Feb

0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS 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.

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)
2 Feb	30.8 °C	52 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
3 Feb	29.5 °C	59 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
4 Feb	29.2 °C	57 %	47 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 19
5 Feb	28.8 °C	51 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
6 Feb	28.9 °C	59 %	42 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 18
7 Feb after	30.7 °C	49 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
8 Feb after	29.8 °C	56 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
9 Feb after	30.7 °C	48 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
10 Feb after	30.1 °C	50 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
11 Feb after	29.2 °C	61 %	44 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 16
12 Feb after	31.1 °C	51 %	29 km/h	0.4 mm	Moderate 16
13 Feb after	32.1 °C	46 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
14 Feb after	29.6 °C	54 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
15 Feb after	29.4 °C	54 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
16 Feb after	31.5 °C	45 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Jan 2025

After · 13 Feb 2025

Before After

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 1 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 9 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak9 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM1011 µg/m³

Optical depth0.16

31123456789

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 · 56Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cuba ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mella fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 February 2025 and 6 February 2025: 5 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,521 hectares (15.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mella (1,511 ha, 4.4 %); Urbano Noris (19 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cuba (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: 105

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 105.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. 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 ADM2 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned