Skip to content
worldfires
ES · Spain · →

Oímbra fire, August 2018 Oímbra, Monterrei

Out · last detection 30 Aug 2018, 03:33 UTC

The fire started on 29 August 2018 in Oímbra, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 179 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 84th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 11 in Spain in 2018, of 23.

The power measured by the satellite is low (3.6 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
179ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
29 Aug 2018 – 30 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
29 Aug
2018
Heat detections
2
in a single hotspot: 4 MW
Danger at start
13
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
6MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Aug30 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

30

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
37km/h · peak gust
43%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 3 Sept.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 37 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Oímbra 1,689 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the town where it started
    117 ha reached on 30 Aug
    1.6 %
  2. Monterrei 2,403 inhabitants · 4.3 km from the town
    63 ha reached on 30 Aug
    0.5 %

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 land56 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland20 %
  • Mixed forest12 %
  • Broadleaved forest9.5 %
  • Agricultural areas3.4 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 29 August 2018 and burned 126 ha (the satellite measured 179 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

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)
29 Aug 24.2 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
30 Aug 27.4 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
31 Aug after 29.6 °C 36 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
1 Sept after 31.3 °C 27 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Sept after 31.9 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Sept after 28.1 °C 42 % 24 km/h 2.6 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Aug 2018
After · 6 Sept 2018

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 2 September 2018 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1025 µg/m³
272829303112
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 · 2Every 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 Oímbra fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 29 August 2018 and 30 August 2018: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 179 hectares (1.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Oímbra (117 ha, 1.6 %); Monterrei (63 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.9 km of Oímbra. 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 27.4 °C, humidity dropped to 43 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 18, class Moderate.
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
What do you think is wrong?

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.