Parada de Sil fire, October 2017 Parada de Sil, Montederramo, Xunqueira de Espadanedo
The fire started on 16 October 2017 in Parada de Sil, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,194 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 21th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 23 in Spain in 2017, of 144.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.9 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
- 1,194ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 16 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Oct
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 4
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 11
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 64MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
16 Oct 2017 · 64 MW · 4
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: 2.5 mm on 2 Nov.
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
-
698 ha reached on 16 Oct11 %
-
Montederramo 660 inhabitants · 9.6 km from the centre256 ha1.9 %
-
Xunqueira de Espadanedo 696 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre234 ha8.4 %
-
Maceda 2,874 inhabitants · 5.4 km from the centre7 ha0.1 %
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 land53 %
- Broadleaved forest22 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland19 %
- Agricultural areas6.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Several official records match this area
According to EGIF (MITECO), 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,667 ha (the satellite measured 1,194 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
EGIF (MITECO) records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.
- 1 Parada de Sil 15 October 2017 · 17:52 1,276 ha · extinguished on 18 October 2017 · cause: arson
- 2 Xunqueira de Espadanedo 15 October 2017 · 19:16 391 ha · extinguished on 18 October 2017 · cause: arson
Total according to EGIF (MITECO): 1,667 ha, 140 % of the 1,194 ha in the satellite perimeter.
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 2 October 2026We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
Sources
- Incendios en Ourense que no se apagan nunca — La Region, 2 February 2020
- El 80% de las 62.000 hectareas arrasadas por los incendios de 2017 en Galicia ardieron en dos dias de octubre — elDiario.es Galicia, 15 April 2018
- La jornada del lunes: panico, trabajo y manifestaciones contra los incendios en Galicia (directo) — La Region, 16 October 2017
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Oct | 21.3 °C | 31 % | 64 km/h | 2.4 mm | Low 11 |
| 17 Oct after | 15.7 °C | 50 % | 46 km/h | 10.2 mm | Very low 1 |
| 18 Oct after | 9.5 °C | 76 % | 54 km/h | 18.5 mm | Very low 0 |
| 19 Oct after | 11.2 °C | 69 % | 39 km/h | 2.3 mm | Very low 0 |
| 20 Oct after | 15.0 °C | 86 % | 51 km/h | 1.4 mm | Very low 0 |
| 21 Oct after | 12.4 °C | 65 % | 54 km/h | 4.3 mm | Very low 0 |
| 22 Oct after | 12.3 °C | 53 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 23 Oct after | 17.6 °C | 35 % | 14 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 24 Oct after | 19.6 °C | 35 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 25 Oct after | 19.6 °C | 35 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 26 Oct after | 19.0 °C | 44 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 27 Oct after | 22.0 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 28 Oct after | 20.0 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 29 Oct after | 17.0 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Oct after | 15.4 °C | 54 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 31 Oct after | 14.9 °C | 30 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 1 Nov after | 14.4 °C | 55 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 2 Nov after | 13.0 °C | 69 % | 54 km/h | 2.5 mm | Very low 2 |
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 161 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.7 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 · 4Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,987 haPantónSeptember 2025 · 4 days · 13 km away
- 30,754 haChandrexa de QueixaAugust 2025 · 20 days · 27 km away
- 3,634 haLazaAugust 2022 · 7 days · 27 km away
- 1,792 haRibas de SilSeptember 2021 · 2 days · 27 km away
- 7,090 haVilariño de ConsoJuly 2022 · 10 days · 29 km away
- 1,731 haSan Cristovo de CeaOctober 2017 · 3 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Parada de Sil fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 16 October 2017 and 16 October 2017: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,194 hectares (11.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Parada de Sil (698 ha, 11 %); Montederramo (256 ha, 1.9 %); Xunqueira de Espadanedo (234 ha, 8.4 %); Maceda (7 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 1.2 km of the centre of Xunqueira de Espadanedo, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 21.3 °C, humidity dropped to 31 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 11, class Low.
- 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. 4 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,667 official ha against 1,194 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Checked against news and agencies: 3 confirmed sources.
- 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.