Soba fire, January 2024 Soba, Arredondo, Ruesga
The fire started on 26 January 2024 in Soba, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,579 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). The largest in Spain in 2024, of 82.
The power measured by the satellite is low (8.1 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
- 2,579ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 6days
- 26 Jan 2024 – 31 Jan 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 26 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 41
- in a single hotspot: 8 MW
- Danger at start
- 1
- Very low · FWI index
- Energy released
- 99MW
- sum of detected power
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 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 8 Feb.
This area had burned before
65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 218 ha in 2018, 599 ha in 2019, 574 ha in 2020, 454 ha in 2021, 671 ha in 2022, 767 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,677 ha that had burned before.
- 452 ha Soba fire, January 2022 652 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 416 ha Soba fire, March 2023 519 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 385 ha Arredondo fire, November 2020 408 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 231 ha Soba fire, February 2019 320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 193 ha Soba fire, January 2022 260 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 175 ha Soba fire, January 2019 222 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 166 ha Arredondo fire, March 2023 195 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 157 ha Soba fire, March 2021 158 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
1,635 ha reached on 28 Jan7.6 %
-
Arredondo 478 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the town719 ha reached on 26 Jan15 %
-
Ruesga 810 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the town225 ha reached on 28 Jan2.6 %
-
San Roque de Riomiera 333 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the town1 ha reached on 30 Jan0.0 %
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 land95 %
- Broadleaved forest4.1 %
- Agricultural areas0.9 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC Montaña oriental ES1300002
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.
Checked against the press
Checked on 30 September 2026We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio de Soba · incendio Arredondo-Soba · incendios de Soba y Arredondo
- According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
- Soba (activo desde el viernes) 26 January 2024
- Arredondo (activo desde el lunes) 29 January 2024
Sources
- El incendio que se produjo entre Arredondo y Soba en enero es el mayor de España en lo que va de año — El Diario Cantabria, 14 October 2024
- Cantabria tiene tres incendios forestales controlados en Soba, Arredondo y Valdeprado del Río — El Diario Cantabria, 31 January 2024
- Grandes Incendios Forestales en España durante 2024 — Forestry.es (recopilatorio de GIF 2024)
Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jan | 9.9 °C | 67 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 27 Jan | 11.3 °C | 57 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 28 Jan | 14.6 °C | 38 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 29 Jan | 13.9 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 30 Jan | 9.7 °C | 61 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 31 Jan | 10.3 °C | 53 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 1 Feb after | 7.2 °C | 75 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 2 Feb after | 8.3 °C | 70 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 3 Feb after | 10.9 °C | 53 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 4 Feb after | 9.8 °C | 60 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 5 Feb after | 8.1 °C | 64 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 6 Feb after | 8.5 °C | 62 % | 11 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 1 |
| 7 Feb after | 8.1 °C | 61 % | 43 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very low 2 |
| 8 Feb after | 9.6 °C | 37 % | 99 km/h | 2.4 mm | Very low 2 |
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 1 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 18: 1.2 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 · 41Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,596 haSobaFebruary 2026 · 1 day · 1 km away
- 822 haSelaya20 February 2021 · 1 day · 6 km away
- 1,540 haSelaya24 February 2026 · 1 day · 7 km away
- 1,745 haVega de PasFebruary 2025 · 4 days · 9 km away
- 903 haVega de Pas15 February 2019 · 2 days · 9 km away
- 819 haVega de Pas15 February 2019 · 2 days · 10 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Soba fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 26 January 2024 and 31 January 2024: 6 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,579 hectares (25.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Soba (1,635 ha, 7.6 %); Arredondo (719 ha, 15 %); Ruesga (225 ha, 2.6 %); San Roque de Riomiera (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.9 km of Arredondo. 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 14.6 °C, humidity dropped to 38 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, 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.
Report an error
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.