Selaya fire, 24 February 2026 Selaya, Vega de Pas, San Roque de Riomiera
The fire started on 24 February 2026 in Selaya, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,540 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 21 in Spain in 2026, of 195.
The power measured by the satellite is low (6.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 1,540ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 9days
- 24 Feb 2026 – 4 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 36
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 6
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 15MW
- 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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.1 mm on 27 Feb.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 171 ha in 2018, 649 ha in 2019, 630 ha in 2020, 834 ha in 2021, 884 ha in 2022, 699 ha in 2023, 631 ha in 2024, 1,141 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,408 ha that had burned before.
- 1,054 ha Vega de Pas fire, February 2025 1,745 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 699 ha Selaya fire, February 2021 822 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 551 ha Vega de Pas fire, February 2020 617 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 455 ha San Roque de Riomiera fire, December 2021 578 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 452 ha Vega de Pas fire, February 2019 903 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 302 ha Selaya fire, February 2023 317 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 267 ha San Roque de Riomiera fire, February 2024 272 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 199 ha Vega de Pas fire, February 2022 482 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
818 ha reached on 24 Feb21 %
-
Vega de Pas 776 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the centre378 ha reached on 25 Feb4.3 %
-
San Roque de Riomiera 333 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre343 ha reached on 25 Feb9.7 %
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 land84 %
- Broadleaved forest8.8 %
- Agricultural areas7.0 %
- Coniferous forest0.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 46 %
- LIC Montaña oriental ES1300002
- LIC Río Pas ES1300010
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 0.12 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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:
Sources
- Cantabria mantiene la alerta contra el fuego en nivel 2, con cuatro incendios activos y uno controlado — eldiario.es Cantabria, 3 March 2026
- El Gobierno de Cantabria rebaja el nivel de alerta por los incendios forestales — The Objective, 27 February 2026
- Incendios en Cantabria y Asturias: mas de 100 focos en invierno — OKdiario, 26 February 2026
- Los incendios en Cantabria se apagan mientras los alcaldes claman: Dejennos cuidar nuestros montes — COPE Cantabria, 26 February 2026
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Feb | 19.4 °C | 34 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 25 Feb | 20.0 °C | 35 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 26 Feb | 21.4 °C | 28 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 Feb | 15.0 °C | 40 % | 53 km/h | 7.1 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 2026 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily 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 · 36Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 822 haSelaya20 February 2021 · 1 day · 1 km away
- 903 haVega de Pas15 February 2019 · 3 days · 2 km away
- 652 haSobaDecember 2021 · 2 days · 3 km away
- 1,745 haVega de PasFebruary 2025 · 5 days · 4 km away
- 819 haVega de Pas15 February 2019 · 2 days · 5 km away
- 745 haVega de PasFebruary 2021 · 3 days · 5 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Selaya fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (24 February 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 4 March 2026 (9 days from 24 February 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,540 hectares (15.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Selaya (818 ha, 21 %); Vega de Pas (378 ha, 4.3 %); San Roque de Riomiera (343 ha, 9.7 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 1.5 km of the centre of Vega de Pas, 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 19.4 °C, humidity dropped to 34 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, 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 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.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 36 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.