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Pías fire, December 2016 Porto, Pías

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2016, 12:58 UTC

The fire started on 30 December 2016 in Pías, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 328 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Zamora since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 35 in Spain in 2016, of 69.

Burnt area
328ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
30 Dec 2016 – 31 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
30 Dec
2016
Heat detections
37
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
321MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Dec31 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

3031

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

The weather it burned in

7°high
19km/h · peak gust
41%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 2 Jan.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Porto 147 inhabitants · 2.5 km from the town
    317 ha reached on 30 Dec
    1.6 %
  2. Pías 91 inhabitants · 9.6 km from the town where it started
    11 ha reached on 30 Dec
    0.3 %

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 land100 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 93 %

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), 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 621 ha (the satellite measured 328 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)
30 Dec 7.2 °C 41 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
31 Dec 5.4 °C 41 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
1 Jan after 1.8 °C 63 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 1
2 Jan after 2.4 °C 65 % 37 km/h 2.9 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Dec 2016
After · 7 Jan 2017

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 · 37Every 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 Pías fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 December 2016 and 31 December 2016: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 328 hectares (3.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Porto (317 ha, 1.6 %); Pías (11 ha, 0.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.5 km of Porto. 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 7.2 °C, humidity dropped to 41 % and gusts hit 19 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 1, class Very 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

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.