Monterrei fire, August 2025 Monterrei, Cualedro, Laza
The fire started on 13 August 2025 in Monterrei, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 24,471 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 9 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 6 in Spain in 2025, of 158.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 24,471ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 8days
- 13 Aug 2025 – 20 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 9
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,511
- in a single hotspot: 753 MW
- Danger at start
- 20
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 6.5GW
- 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 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,302 ha in 2016, 652 ha in 2017, 255 ha in 2018, 3,553 ha in 2020, 339 ha in 2022, 23 ha in 2023, 6 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,364 ha that had burned before.
- 1,601 ha Oímbra fire, September 2016 1,869 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,419 ha Monterrei fire, July 2020 1,531 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,283 ha Monterrei fire, September 2020 1,420 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,202 ha Cualedro fire, September 2016 1,529 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 724 ha Monterrei fire, July 2020 729 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 374 ha Monterrei fire, August 2017 374 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 309 ha Monterrei fire, September 2016 362 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 187 ha Monterrei fire, July 2017 191 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
9,992 ha reached on 13 Aug84 %
-
Cualedro 1,538 inhabitants · fire reached the centre7,258 ha reached on 13 Aug62 %
-
Laza 1,156 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the centre2,850 ha reached on 15 Aug13 %
-
Oímbra 1,689 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre2,827 ha reached on 13 Aug40 %
-
Xinzo de Limia 9,699 inhabitants · 10.5 km from the centre753 ha reached on 16 Aug5.7 %
-
Trasmiras 1,216 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre408 ha reached on 16 Aug7.2 %
-
Baltar 849 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the centre236 ha reached on 16 Aug2.5 %
-
Verín 13,956 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre119 ha reached on 13 Aug1.3 %
-
Castrelo do Val 947 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre16 ha reached on 18 Aug0.1 %
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 land45 %
- Agricultural areas25 %
- Coniferous forest13 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland12 %
- Broadleaved forest4.4 %
- Mixed forest1.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 0 %
- LIC Río Támega ES1130005
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 34 hectares of built-up land and about 1,000 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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
Checked against the press
Checked on 29 September 2026We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio de Oímbra-Xinzo · Incendio de Oímbra-Xinzo de Limia · Incendio de A Granxa (Oímbra)
- Official area reported: 23,763 ha (the satellite measured 24,471 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 31 August 2025
Sources
- Un año después del incendio de Oímbra (Ourense): las secuelas de los brigadistas — COPE Galicia, 19 August 2026
- Piden el archivo provisional de la causa contra el tractorista investigado por el fuego de Oímbra (Ourense) en 2025 — El Español (Treintayseis), 15 July 2026
- Galicia: la cifra récord de más de 100.000 hectáreas calcinadas (fin de la pesadilla de tres megaincendios) — Diario do Tamega, 31 August 2025
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 Aug | 33.0 °C | 25 % | 42 km/h | 3.2 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 14 Aug | 34.3 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Aug | 34.5 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Aug | 34.2 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Aug | 33.2 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Aug | 25.9 °C | 39 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Aug | 24.7 °C | 32 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Aug | 23.3 °C | 37 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Aug after | 25.8 °C | 34 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 28 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 24 Aug after | 30.6 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Aug after | 31.3 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 31 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 27 Aug after | 21.6 °C | 42 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 28 Aug after | 20.3 °C | 37 % | 42 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Aug after | 23.4 °C | 46 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Aug after | 25.2 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 26 |
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 17 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 288 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 140: 9.4 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 · 1,511Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Monterrei fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 August 2025 and 20 August 2025: 8 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 24,471 hectares (244.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 9 municipalities: Monterrei (9,992 ha, 84 %); Cualedro (7,258 ha, 62 %); Laza (2,850 ha, 13 %); Oímbra (2,827 ha, 40 %); Xinzo de Limia (753 ha, 5.7 %); Trasmiras (408 ha, 7.2 %); Baltar (236 ha, 2.5 %); Verín (119 ha, 1.3 %); Castrelo do Val (16 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Monterrei and reached its centre: 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 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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. 1,511 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Checked against news and agencies: 3 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 2025, 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.