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Mérida fire, July 2017 Mérida, Arroyo de San Serván

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2017, 01:59 UTC

The fire started on 14 July 2017 in Mérida, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 470 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 July 2017 at 19:50 and declared extinguished on 24 July 2017.

It is the 15th largest in Badajoz since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 53 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

The power measured by the satellite is low (6.2 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
470ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
14 Jul 2017 – 14 Jul 2017
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Jul
2017
Heat detections
9
in a single hotspot: 6 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
40MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

15

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
36km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mérida 1,232 inhabitants · 17.8 km from the town where it started
    431 ha reached on 15 Jul
    0.5 %
  2. Arroyo de San Serván 4,001 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the town
    39 ha reached on 15 Jul
    0.8 %

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 land91 %
  • Agricultural areas5.9 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.9 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub1.3 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 96 %

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 14 July 2017 and burned 458 ha (the satellite measured 470 ha).

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)
14 Jul 40.7 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
15 Jul after 39.0 °C 7 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
16 Jul after 38.9 °C 5 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Jul after 37.1 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jul after 34.9 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Jul after 29.7 °C 30 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jul after 28.8 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jul after 28.9 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jul after 31.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jul after 33.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul after 34.3 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jul 2017
After · 21 Jul 2017

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 18 July 2017 the air beside the fire reached 16 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak16 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1038 µg/m³
12131415161718
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 · 9Every 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 Mérida fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 July 2017 and 14 July 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 July 2017 at 19:50 and declared extinguished on 24 July 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 470 hectares (4.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mérida (431 ha, 0.5 %); Arroyo de San Serván (39 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.6 km of Arroyo de San Serván. 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 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, class Extreme.
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
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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 112.

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.