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Soba fire, April 2023 Soba, Espinosa de los Monteros

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2023, 12:22 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2023 in Soba, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 205 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 8 April 2023 at 07:20 and declared extinguished on 10 April 2023.

It is the 76th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 61 in Spain in 2023, 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.

Burnt area
205ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
8 Apr 2023 – 9 Apr 2023
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
8 Apr
2023
Heat detections
5
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
22MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Apr 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr9 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

89

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

The weather it burned in

16°high
35km/h · peak gust
38%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.7 mm on 12 Apr.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 57 ha in 2017, 68 ha in 2021, 4 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 93 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Soba 1,057 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town where it started
    194 ha reached on 8 Apr
    0.9 %
  2. Espinosa de los Monteros 1,627 inhabitants · 8.0 km from the town
    11 ha reached on 9 Apr
    0.1 %

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

  • Other natural land99 %
  • Agricultural areas1.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 27 %

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 8 April 2023 and burned 178 ha (the satellite measured 205 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)
8 Apr 15.3 °C 47 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
9 Apr 15.9 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 4
10 Apr after 14.3 °C 56 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
11 Apr after 13.9 °C 57 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very low 4
12 Apr after 6.4 °C 68 % 55 km/h 7.7 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Apr 2023
After · 16 Apr 2023

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 10 April 2023 the air beside the fire reached 27 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak27 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1040 µg/m³
Optical depth1.25
6789101112
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 · 5Every 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 Soba fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 April 2023 and 9 April 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 8 April 2023 at 07:20 and declared extinguished on 10 April 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 205 hectares (2.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Soba (194 ha, 0.9 %); Espinosa de los Monteros (11 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.8 km of Soba. 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 15.9 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 35 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

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.