Soba fire, 31 December 2021 Soba, San Roque de Riomiera, Selaya
The fire started on 31 December 2021 in Soba, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 652 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 18 in Spain in 2021, of 124.
The power measured by the satellite is low (6.8 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: Soba · 2019Soba · 2019Soba · 2021Soba · 2021
- Burnt area
- 652ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 31 Dec 2021 – 1 Jan 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 31 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 18
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Danger at start
- 4
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 20MW
- 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 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 16.0 mm on 4 Jan.
This area had burned before
80% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 98 ha in 2018, 337 ha in 2019, 116 ha in 2020, 330 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 524 ha that had burned before.
- 170 ha Soba fire, February 2019 245 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 168 ha Soba fire, February 2019 320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 147 ha Soba fire, March 2021 158 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 137 ha Soba fire, February 2021 164 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 89 ha Soba fire, April 2018 102 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 46 ha Soba fire, February 2021 132 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
-
570 ha reached on 31 Dec2.7 %
-
San Roque de Riomiera 333 inhabitants · fire reached the centre82 ha reached on 31 Dec2.3 %
-
Selaya 1,868 inhabitants · 7.0 km from the centre1 ha reached on 1 Jan0.0 %
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 land96 %
- Agricultural areas2.6 %
- Broadleaved forest1.2 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Montaña oriental ES1300002
- LIC Río Miera ES1300015
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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
Several official records match this area
According to EGIF (MITECO), 3 fires started inside this perimeter on these dates, totalling 368 ha (the satellite measured 652 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.
- 1 Soba Valdició /Veinte 27 December 2021 46 ha · extinguished on 27 December 2021 · cause: arson
- 2 San Roque de Riomiera San Roque / el Caracol 30 December 2021 12 ha · extinguished on 30 December 2021 · cause: arson
- 3 Soba Valdició /Peña la Maza 31 December 2021 · 13:35 310 ha · extinguished on 3 January 2022 · cause: arson
Total according to EGIF (MITECO): 368 ha, 56 % of the 652 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | 18.4 °C | 35 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 2 Jan after | 16.7 °C | 38 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 5 |
| 3 Jan after | 15.2 °C | 55 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 4 Jan after | 14.1 °C | 60 % | 67 km/h | 16.0 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.
Detections table · 18Every 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 Soba fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 December 2021 to 1 January 2022 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 January 2022 to 1 January 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 652 hectares (6.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Soba (570 ha, 2.7 %); San Roque de Riomiera (82 ha, 2.3 %); Selaya (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire reached the centre of San Roque de Riomiera: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 18.4 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 4, class Very 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 January 2022 to 1 January 2022. 18 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 368 official ha against 652 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- 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 2020, 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.