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Rascafría fire, August 2019 Rascafría, Miraflores de la Sierra, Canencia

Out · last detection 6 Aug 2019, 13:22 UTC

The fire started on 4 August 2019 in Rascafría, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 222 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 4 August 2019 at 13:25 and declared extinguished on 27 August 2019.

It is the 11th largest in Madrid since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 42 in Spain in 2019, of 102.

Burnt area
222ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
4 Aug 2019 – 6 Aug 2019
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
4 Aug
2019
Heat detections
37
in a single hotspot: 310 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Aug 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Aug6 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

456

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
44km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.6 mm on 9 Aug.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Rascafría 267 inhabitants · 7.4 km from the town where it started
    154 ha reached on 4 Aug
    1.0 %
  2. Miraflores de la Sierra 7,350 inhabitants · 5.1 km from the town
    58 ha reached on 4 Aug
    1.0 %
  3. Canencia 475 inhabitants · 8.3 km from the town
    11 ha reached on 5 Aug
    0.2 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub88 %
  • Coniferous forest11 %
  • Other natural land1.3 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 30 %

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), this fire started on 4 August 2019 and burned 223 ha (the satellite measured 222 ha).

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)
4 Aug 28.7 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Aug 29.2 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Aug 28.1 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Aug after 21.1 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm High 32
8 Aug after 26.7 °C 25 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Aug after 23.0 °C 40 % 57 km/h 4.6 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jul 2019
After · 13 Aug 2019

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 · Copernicus

On 5 August 2019 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1024 µg/m³
23456789
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 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 Rascafría fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 4 August 2019 and 6 August 2019: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 4 August 2019 at 13:25 and declared extinguished on 27 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 222 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Rascafría (154 ha, 1.0 %); Miraflores de la Sierra (58 ha, 1.0 %); Canencia (11 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 5.1 km of Miraflores de la Sierra. 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 29.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very 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

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.

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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.