Monterrei fire, September 2020 Cualedro, Monterrei, Trasmiras
The fire started on 13 September 2020 in Monterrei, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,420 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 13 September 2020 at 14:48 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2020.
It is the 19th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 6 in Spain in 2020, of 89.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,420ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 13 Sept 2020 – 14 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 42
- in a single hotspot: 130 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 686MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
14 Sept 2020 · 686 MW · 42
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 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 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
-
Cualedro 1,538 inhabitants · fire reached the centre1,123 ha reached on 14 Sept9.6 %
-
269 ha reached on 14 Sept2.2 %
-
Trasmiras 1,216 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the centre30 ha0.5 %
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 land75 %
- Agricultural areas22 %
- Broadleaved forest3.7 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 3.5 hectares of built-up land and about 100 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Complex of 2 fires according to EGIF (MITECO)
According to EGIF (MITECO), 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,378 ha (the satellite measured 1,420 ha).
EGIF (MITECO) records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Cualedro Santa Baia de Montes 13 September 2020 · 14:48 1,310 ha · extinguished on 17 September 2020 · cause: arson
- 2 Cualedro Santa Baia de Montes 14 September 2020 · 03:04 68 ha · extinguished on 17 September 2020 · cause: arson
Total according to EGIF (MITECO): 1,378 ha, 97 % of the 1,420 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendio de Cualedro · incendio de Monterrei · incendio de San Millao
- Official area reported: 1,535 ha (the satellite measured 1,420 ha)
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 1 August 2020
Sources
- La Xunta da por controlado el incendio de Cualedro (Ourense) tras arrasar más de 1.500 hectáreas — eldiario.es, 1 August 2020
- El incendio de Cualedro (Ourense) supera las 1.500 hectáreas, el más grande en Galicia desde la ola de 2017 — infoLibre, 31 July 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Sept | 30.4 °C | 22 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Sept | 25.1 °C | 45 % | 58 km/h | 7.5 mm | Very low 5 |
| 15 Sept after | 24.2 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 16 Sept after | 24.8 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 17 Sept after | 23.8 °C | 46 % | 58 km/h | 7.4 mm | Very low 4 |
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.
Detections table · 42Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 24,471 haMonterreiAugust 2025 · 8 days · 2 km away
- 3,493 haVilarelho Da RaiaAugust 2025 · 2 days · 19 km away
- 3,127 haChaves BusteloJuly 2022 · 5 days · 19 km away
- 3,634 haLazaAugust 2022 · 7 days · 24 km away
- 7,090 haVilariño de ConsoJuly 2022 · 10 days · 32 km away
- 3,240 haMuíñosOctober 2017 · 2 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Monterrei fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 September 2020 and 14 September 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), the largest of the 2 recorded fires was detected on 13 September 2020 at 14:48 and declared extinguished on 17 September 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,420 hectares (14.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Cualedro (1,123 ha, 9.6 %); Monterrei (269 ha, 2.2 %); Trasmiras (30 ha, 0.5 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire reached the centre of Cualedro: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.4 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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. 42 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,378 official ha against 1,420 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 2 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.