Oímbra fire, 18 July 2022 Verín, Vilardevós, Oímbra
The fire started on 18 July 2022 in Oímbra, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,325 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 18 July 2022 at 15:23 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2022.
It is the 11th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 24 in Spain in 2022, of 196.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,325ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 18 Jul 2022 – 21 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 69
- in a single hotspot: 198 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 498MW
- 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 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
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
-
Verín 13,956 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the centre1,980 ha reached on 18 Jul21 %
-
Vilardevós 1,616 inhabitants · 6.8 km from the centre196 ha reached on 19 Jul1.3 %
-
148 ha reached on 18 Jul2.1 %
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
- Scrub and transitional woodland64 %
- Other natural land20 %
- Agricultural areas7.5 %
- Coniferous forest4.4 %
- Mixed forest1.8 %
- Artificial surfaces1.1 %
- Broadleaved forest0.7 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 3.8 hectares of built-up land and about 150 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
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 18 July 2022 and burned 1,931 ha (the satellite measured 2,325 ha).
- Oímbra 18 July 2022 · 15:23 1,931 ha · extinguished on 25 July 2022 · 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.
Checked against the press
Checked on 30 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendio de Oímbra · fuego de Rabal · fuego de Videferre
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Rabal (Oímbra) 17 July 2022 2,100 ha
- Videferre (Oímbra) 17 July 2022 919 ha
- San Cibrao (Oímbra) 17 July 2022 400 ha
- Declared extinguished: 24 July 2022
Sources
- El fuego se acerca a viviendas en Arbo y arrasa 230 hectáreas — El Progreso, 30 July 2022
- Extinguido uno de los incendios que afectan a Ourense tras quemar 919 hectáreas — Diario de Pontevedra, 24 July 2022
- El 61% del Parque Natural de O Invernadoiro arrasado, 85 casas quemadas y 7 incendios arden fuera de control — Galicia Press, 20 July 2022
- Cuatro fuegos activos en Ourense: más de 16.000 hectáreas arrasadas y dos carreteras cortadas — La Región, 20 July 2022
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jul | 31.8 °C | 28 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Jul | 25.8 °C | 44 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 20 Jul | 32.0 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Jul | 33.0 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 22 Jul after | 31.0 °C | 32 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 23 Jul after | 33.0 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 24 Jul after | 31.0 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 25 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 26 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 33 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 27 Jul after | 30.1 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Jul after | 28.1 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 29 Jul after | 30.0 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 30 Jul after | 34.4 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 31 Jul after | 35.6 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 · 69Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,493 haVilarelho Da RaiaAugust 2025 · 2 days · 8 km away
- 24,471 haMonterreiAugust 2025 · 8 days · 18 km away
- 13,065 haValpaços ErvõesJuly 2026 · 6 days · 27 km away
- 3,405 haVinhais Vale das Fontes28 August 2025 · 3 days · 30 km away
- 3,634 haLazaAugust 2022 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 12,026 haA MezquitaAugust 2025 · 9 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Oímbra fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 18 July 2022 and 21 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 18 July 2022 at 15:23 and declared extinguished on 25 July 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,325 hectares (23.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Verín (1,980 ha, 21 %); Vilardevós (196 ha, 1.3 %); Oímbra (148 ha, 2.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Oímbra and came within 4.4 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 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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. 69 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,931 official ha against 2,325 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 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.