Porto do Son fire, September 2019 Porto do Son, Ribeira
The fire started on 7 September 2019 in Porto do Son, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 211 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 6 September 2019 at 23:04 and declared extinguished on 8 September 2019.
It is the 12th largest in A Coruña since 2016 (of 20 with a page). Number 48 in Spain in 2019, of 102.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 211ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 7 Sept 2019 – 7 Sept 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 7 Sept
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 33
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 751MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
7 Sept 2019 · 751 MW · 33
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 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.1 mm on 16 Sept.
This area had burned before
1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2018.
What happened to each town
-
155 ha reached on 7 Sept1.6 %
-
Ribeira 27,102 inhabitants · 6.0 km from the centre56 ha reached on 7 Sept0.8 %
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
- Coniferous forest58 %
- Mixed forest17 %
- Agricultural areas13 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland6.1 %
- Other natural land4.7 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 6 September 2019 and burned 198 ha (the satellite measured 211 ha).
- Ribeira Balteiro 6 September 2019 · 23:04 198 ha · extinguished on 8 September 2019 · 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Sept | 24.5 °C | 40 % | 60 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Sept after | 25.0 °C | 48 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 9 Sept after | 20.7 °C | 57 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 10 Sept after | 19.8 °C | 50 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 11 Sept after | 22.5 °C | 52 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Sept after | 27.3 °C | 41 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 13 Sept after | 29.5 °C | 43 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 14 Sept after | 28.5 °C | 46 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 15 Sept after | 28.3 °C | 50 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 16 Sept after | 25.8 °C | 59 % | 33 km/h | 6.1 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 7 September 2019 the air beside the fire reached 14 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 · 33Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Porto do Son fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 September 2019 and 7 September 2019: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 6 September 2019 at 23:04 and declared extinguished on 8 September 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 211 hectares (2.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Porto do Son (155 ha, 1.6 %); Ribeira (56 ha, 0.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 6.0 km of the centre of Ribeira, 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 24.5 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 23, class 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. 33 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 198 official ha against 211 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.