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Tejeda fire, September 2017 Vega de San Mateo, Tejeda, San Bartolomé de Tirajana

Out · last detection 21 Sept 2017, 02:29 UTC

The fire started on 20 September 2017 in Tejeda, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,561 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 6 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 20 September 2017 at 14:00 and declared extinguished on 30 September 2017.

Number 18 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Vega de San Mateo · 2023Ingenio · 2019Artenara · 2019Artenara · 2019

Burnt area
1,561ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
20 Sept 2017 – 21 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
6
municipalities
Started on
20 Sept
2017
Heat detections
44
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
334MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Sept21 Sept
21 Sept 2017

How it evolved, day by day

20 Sept 2017 · 349 MW · 7 21 Sept 2017 · 320 MW · 37
20 Sept 21 Sept

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
52km/h · peak gust
59%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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 1% of the area of London (16 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. Vega de San Mateo 7,899 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the town
    887 ha reached on 21 Sept
    23 %
  2. Tejeda 1,806 inhabitants · 0.6 km from the town where it started
    272 ha reached on 20 Sept
    2.6 %
  3. San Bartolomé de Tirajana 54,291 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the town
    206 ha reached on 21 Sept
    0.6 %
  4. Santa Lucía de Tirajana
    106 ha reached on 21 Sept
    1.7 %
  5. Valsequillo de Gran Canaria 9,869 inhabitants · 5.2 km from the town
    56 ha reached on 21 Sept
    1.4 %
  6. Agüimes 78,584 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the town
    41 ha reached on 21 Sept
    0.5 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub54 %
  • Coniferous forest31 %
  • Other natural land7.1 %
  • Agricultural areas4.6 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland3.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 18 %

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 20 September 2017 and burned 1,826 ha (the satellite measured 1,561 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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
incendio de la cumbre · incendio de Tejeda · incendio de San Mateo
Declared extinguished: 2 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)
20 Sept 15.1 °C 59 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
21 Sept 13.9 °C 69 % 52 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 11
22 Sept after 13.4 °C 62 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
23 Sept after 14.2 °C 67 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
24 Sept after 17.9 °C 46 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
25 Sept after 16.8 °C 47 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
26 Sept after 16.3 °C 60 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 13
27 Sept after 16.3 °C 58 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Sept after 15.8 °C 52 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
29 Sept after 14.5 °C 62 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Sept after 13.5 °C 69 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Oct after 14.2 °C 66 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Sept 2017
After · 28 Sept 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.

Detections table · 44Every 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 Tejeda fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 20 September 2017 and 21 September 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 20 September 2017 at 14:00 and declared extinguished on 30 September 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,561 hectares (15.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 6 municipalities: Vega de San Mateo (887 ha, 23 %); Tejeda (272 ha, 2.6 %); San Bartolomé de Tirajana (206 ha, 0.6 %); Santa Lucía de Tirajana (106 ha, 1.7 %); Valsequillo de Gran Canaria (56 ha, 1.4 %); Agüimes (41 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.6 km of Tejeda. 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 15.1 °C, humidity dropped to 59 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 44 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,826 official ha against 1,561 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 4 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.