Puntagorda fire, July 2023 Tijarafe, Puntagorda, El Paso
The fire started on 15 July 2023 in Puntagorda, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,925 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
Number 5 in Spain in 2023, of 124.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Garafía · 2020El Paso · 2016
- Burnt area
- 2,925ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 15 Jul 2023 – 18 Jul 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Jul
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 194
- in a single hotspot: 252 MW
- Danger at start
- 8
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.2GW
- 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 37 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
-
Tijarafe 2,733 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre2,008 ha reached on 15 Jul37 %
-
Puntagorda where it started917 ha reached on 15 Jul30 %
-
El Paso 8,290 inhabitants · 6.5 km from the centre11 ha reached on 15 Jul0.1 %
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
- Coniferous forest67 %
- Agricultural areas13 %
- Other natural land8.1 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland8.0 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub3.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 57 %
- LIC Barlovento, Garafía, El Paso y Tijarafe ES7020084
- LIC Barranco de las Angustias ES7020021
- ZEPA + LIC Caldera de Taburiente ES0000043
- ZEPA Cumbres y acantilados del norte de La Palma ES0000114
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 9.1 hectares of built-up land and about 400 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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
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 La Palma 2023 · incendio forestal de La Palma · incendio de Puntagorda-Tijarafe
- Official area reported: 3,310 ha (the satellite measured 2,925 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 11 September 2023
Sources
- La restauracion de las zonas afectadas en La Palma por el incendio del verano de 2023 se centra en recuperar la biodiversidad y combatir la erosion — elDiario.es Canarias Ahora, 18 April 2024
- Los tecnicos dan por extinguido el incendio de La Palma — RTVC (Television Canaria), 12 September 2023
- El Cabildo de La Palma da por extinguido este 11 de septiembre el incendio forestal de julio — elDiario.es Canarias Ahora, 11 September 2023
- El incendio de Puntagorda (La Palma), descontrolado: ya afecta a 4.500 hectareas — Infobae, 15 July 2023
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jul | 13.1 °C | 79 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 16 Jul | 12.5 °C | 72 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 17 Jul | 12.2 °C | 68 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 18 Jul | 12.5 °C | 69 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 19 Jul after | 12.2 °C | 78 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 20 Jul after | 12.1 °C | 79 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 21 Jul after | 12.4 °C | 76 % | 62 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 22 Jul after | 12.4 °C | 73 % | 65 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 23 Jul after | 12.7 °C | 69 % | 57 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 24 Jul after | 12.1 °C | 72 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 25 Jul after | 12.7 °C | 70 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 26 Jul after | 12.5 °C | 75 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 27 Jul after | 12.5 °C | 71 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 9 |
| 28 Jul after | 12.3 °C | 69 % | 51 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
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 18 July 2023 the air beside the fire reached 16 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 · 194Every 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 Puntagorda fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 July 2023 to 18 July 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 July 2023 to 15 July 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,925 hectares (29.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tijarafe (2,008 ha, 37 %); Puntagorda (917 ha, 30 %); El Paso (11 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 1.0 km of the centre of Tijarafe, 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 13.1 °C, humidity dropped to 68 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 9, 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 15 July 2023 → 18 July 2023.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 July 2023 to 15 July 2023. 194 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- 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 2025, 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.