O Irixo fire, August 2022 O Irixo, Lalín, Dozón
The fire started on 10 August 2022 in O Irixo, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 831 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 10 August 2022 at 12:30 and declared extinguished on 15 August 2022.
It is the 26th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 50 in Spain in 2022, of 196.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 831ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 10 Aug 2022 – 11 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 10 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 29
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 21
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 299MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
11 Aug 2022 · 299 MW · 29
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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 15 Aug.
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
-
512 ha reached on 11 Aug4.2 %
-
Lalín 20,292 inhabitants · 9.7 km from the centre302 ha reached on 11 Aug0.9 %
-
Dozón 961 inhabitants · 6.4 km from the centre17 ha0.2 %
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 land40 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland30 %
- Coniferous forest13 %
- Broadleaved forest10 %
- Mixed forest6.5 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 10 August 2022 and burned 796 ha (the satellite measured 831 ha).
- O Irixo Castro (O) 10 August 2022 · 12:30 796 ha · extinguished on 15 August 2022 · cause: negligence
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Aug | 30.2 °C | 36 % | 51 km/h | 2.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 11 Aug | 29.7 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 41 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 13 Aug after | 24.3 °C | 47 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 14 Aug after | 22.2 °C | 48 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 24 |
| 15 Aug after | 21.6 °C | 48 % | 40 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
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 12 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 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 · 29Every 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 O Irixo fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 10 August 2022 and 11 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 10 August 2022 at 12:30 and declared extinguished on 15 August 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 831 hectares (8.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: O Irixo (512 ha, 4.2 %); Lalín (302 ha, 0.9 %); Dozón (17 ha, 0.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in O Irixo and came within 2.6 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.2 °C, humidity dropped to 36 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 25, 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. 29 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 796 official ha against 831 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.