Porto fire, February 2022 Porto, Pías, Lubián
The fire started on 26 February 2022 in Porto, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 499 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 25 February 2022 at 20:20 and declared extinguished on 26 February 2022.
It is the 14th largest in Zamora since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 63 in Spain in 2022, of 196.
The power measured by the satellite is low (23.7 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
- 499ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 26 Feb 2022 – 26 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 47
- in a single hotspot: 24 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 442MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
26 Feb 2022 · 442 MW · 47
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 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.8 mm on 1 Mar.
This area had burned before
6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
194 ha reached on 26 Feb1.0 %
-
Pías 91 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre153 ha reached on 26 Feb3.5 %
-
Lubián 296 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the centre152 ha reached on 26 Feb1.6 %
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 land97 %
- Broadleaved forest1.8 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland1.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 40 %
- ZEPA + LIC Lago de Sanabria y alrededores ES4190105 · ES4190009
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 0.18 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 25 February 2022 and burned 503 ha (the satellite measured 499 ha).
- Lubián Mallada de las Chairas 25 February 2022 · 20:20 503 ha · extinguished on 26 February 2022 · cause: arson
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Feb | 6.2 °C | 54 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 27 Feb after | 8.4 °C | 53 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 28 Feb after | 10.9 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 3 |
| 1 Mar after | 6.7 °C | 59 % | 41 km/h | 5.8 mm | Very low 0 |
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 27 February 2022 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 47Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,026 haA MezquitaAugust 2025 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 25,953 haPorto de Sanabria PortoAugust 2025 · 17 days · 25 km away
- 7,090 haVilariño de ConsoJuly 2022 · 10 days · 31 km away
- 30,754 haChandrexa de QueixaAugust 2025 · 20 days · 33 km away
- 3,634 haLazaAugust 2022 · 7 days · 37 km away
- 12,735 haCarballeda de ValdeorrasJuly 2022 · 8 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Porto fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 26 February 2022 and 26 February 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 25 February 2022 at 20:20 and declared extinguished on 26 February 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 499 hectares (5.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Porto (194 ha, 1.0 %); Pías (153 ha, 3.5 %); Lubián (152 ha, 1.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.0 km of the centre of Pías, 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 6.2 °C, humidity dropped to 54 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, 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 · 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. 47 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 503 official ha against 499 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.