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Salceda de Caselas fire, October 2017 Salceda de Caselas, Ponteareas, O Porriño

Out · last detection 16 Oct 2017, 02:56 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2017 in Salceda de Caselas, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,026 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Pontevedra since 2016 (of 33 with a page). Number 28 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.6 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…

Suggestions: As Neves · 2017Monção · 2017Pazos de Borbén · 2017Arcos de Valdevez · 2016

Burnt area
1,026ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
7days
10 Oct 2017 – 16 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
10 Oct
2017
Heat detections
27
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Average daily power
51MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct16 Oct
16 Oct 2017

How it evolved, day by day

10 Oct 2017 · 71 MW · 11 16 Oct 2017 · 30 MW · 16
10 Oct 16 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
50km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 25.4 mm on 17 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (10 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Salceda de Caselas where it started
    597 ha reached on 10 Oct
    17 %
  2. Ponteareas 23,211 inhabitants · 3.7 km from the centre
    370 ha reached on 16 Oct
    3.0 %
  3. O Porriño 9,409 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the centre
    48 ha
    0.8 %
  4. Tui 17,468 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre
    12 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Mixed forest33 %
  • Broadleaved forest30 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland14 %
  • Coniferous forest12 %
  • Agricultural areas8.6 %
  • Other natural land2.0 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

Several official records match this area

According to EGIF (MITECO), 2 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 1,540 ha (the satellite measured 1,026 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

EGIF (MITECO) records each fire that started at a different time or place separately; the satellite sees a single burned area, so this page groups them together. The numbers on the map show where each one started.

When each one burned

1 27 ha 2 1,513 ha
10 Oct19 Oct
arson
  1. 1 Salceda de Caselas 10 October 2017 · 01:13 27 ha · extinguished on 10 October 2017 · cause: arson
  2. 2 Tui 15 October 2017 · 20:15 1,513 ha · extinguished on 19 October 2017 · cause: arson

Total according to EGIF (MITECO): 1,540 ha, 150 % of the 1,026 ha in the satellite perimeter.

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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 2 October 2026

We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendio de Salceda de Caselas · Incendio de As Neves / Salvaterra de Miño · Incendio de Guláns (Ponteareas)
Declared extinguished: 19 October 2017

Sources

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)
10 Oct 26.6 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
11 Oct 22.3 °C 38 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
12 Oct 26.3 °C 33 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
13 Oct 24.0 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Oct 27.5 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
15 Oct 30.7 °C 25 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Oct 22.1 °C 42 % 42 km/h 15.8 mm Very low 2
17 Oct after 18.1 °C 51 % 41 km/h 25.4 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2017
After · 23 Oct 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 15 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 37: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10113 µg/m³
8910111213141516171819
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 · 27Every 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 Salceda de Caselas fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 October 2017 to 16 October 2017 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 October 2017 to 15 October 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,026 hectares (10.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Salceda de Caselas (597 ha, 17 %); Ponteareas (370 ha, 3.0 %); O Porriño (48 ha, 0.8 %); Tui (12 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.7 km of the centre of O Porriño, 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 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 October 2017 to 15 October 2017. 27 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,540 official ha against 1,026 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 2 confirmed sources.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.