Muíños fire, October 2017 Muíños, Lobios
The fire started on 15 October 2017 in Muíños, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,240 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 October 2017 at 15:50 and declared extinguished on 19 October 2017.
It is the 8th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 8 in Spain in 2017, of 144.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,240ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 15 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 49
- in a single hotspot: 37 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 369MW
- 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 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 11.7 mm on 17 Oct.
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
-
1,771 ha reached on 16 Oct16 %
-
Lobios 1,776 inhabitants · 5.3 km from the town1,468 ha reached on 15 Oct8.7 %
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 %
- Coniferous forest5.8 %
- Agricultural areas2.7 %
- Broadleaved forest0.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 83 %
- LIC Baixa Limia ES1130001
- ZEPA Baixa Limia - Serra do Xurés ES0000376
- LIC Peneda / Gerês PTCON0001
- ZEPA Serra do Gerês PTZPE0002
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 October 2017 and burned 3,485 ha (the satellite measured 3,240 ha).
- Lobios 14 October 2017 · 15:50 3,485 ha · extinguished on 19 October 2017 · cause: unknown
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 Oct | 23.1 °C | 26 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Oct | 24.2 °C | 26 % | 67 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Oct | 18.3 °C | 35 % | 62 km/h | 2.3 mm | Low 6 |
| 17 Oct after | 12.6 °C | 54 % | 64 km/h | 11.7 mm | Very low 0 |
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 16 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 186 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 77: 5.2 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 · 49Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,074 haEntrimoSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 15 km away
- 7,225 haPonte da Barca Entre Ambos-os-Rios, Ermida e GermilJuly 2025 · 11 days · 23 km away
- 6,662 haArcos de Valdevez Soajo8 August 2016 · 9 days · 27 km away
- 24,471 haMonterreiAugust 2025 · 8 days · 36 km away
- 3,893 haMonção MerufeOctober 2017 · 2 days · 39 km away
- 2,728 haCabeceiras de Basto Cavez14 September 2024 · 6 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Muíños fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 October 2017 at 15:50 and declared extinguished on 19 October 2017.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,240 hectares (32.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Muíños (1,771 ha, 16 %); Lobios (1,468 ha, 8.7 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.0 km of Muíños. 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 24.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 30, 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
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 49 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 3,485 official ha against 3,240 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.