Useras/les Useres fire, August 2022 Useras/les Useres, Llucena/Lucena del Cid, Costur
The fire started on 14 August 2022 in Useras/les Useres, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 888 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 August 2022 at 12:29 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2022.
It is the 6th largest in Castelló / Castellón since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 48 in Spain in 2022, of 196.
The power measured by the satellite is low (11.8 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…
- Burnt area
- 888ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 14 Aug 2022 – 15 Aug 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 14 Aug
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 27
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 70
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 108MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
15 Aug 2022 · 108 MW · 27
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 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 17 Aug.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
588 ha reached on 15 Aug7.3 %
-
Llucena/Lucena del Cid 1,421 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the centre224 ha reached on 15 Aug1.6 %
-
Costur 511 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre66 ha reached on 15 Aug3.0 %
-
Figueroles 525 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the centre11 ha reached on 15 Aug0.9 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub34 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland27 %
- Other natural land16 %
- Agricultural areas11 %
- Coniferous forest7.4 %
- Broadleaved forest4.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 25 %
- ZEPA Penyagolosa (ZEPA) ES0000466
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 were about 1.5 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 14 August 2022 and burned 728 ha (the satellite measured 888 ha).
- Costur Pla del Maneguet 14 August 2022 · 12:29 728 ha · extinguished on 19 August 2022 · cause: negligence
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Aug | 32.3 °C | 24 % | 80 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 15 Aug | 29.1 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Aug after | 28.7 °C | 41 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 17 Aug after | 28.4 °C | 30 % | 46 km/h | 2.4 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 16 August 2022 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 27Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 424 haCullaDecember 2017 · 2 days · 21 km away
- 1,380 haArtanaJuly 2016 · 3 days · 27 km away
- 9,222 hala Vall d'UixóJuly 2026 · 6 days · 30 km away
- 4,604 haVillanueva de Viver Puebla de ArenosoMarch 2023 · 7 days · 35 km away
- 726 haTírigAugust 2026 · 4 days · 38 km away
- 525 haSonejaAugust 2021 · 1 day · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Useras/les Useres fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2022 and 15 August 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 August 2022 at 12:29 and declared extinguished on 19 August 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 888 hectares (8.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Useras/les Useres (588 ha, 7.3 %); Llucena/Lucena del Cid (224 ha, 1.6 %); Costur (66 ha, 3.0 %); Figueroles (11 ha, 0.9 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 1.8 km of the centre of Costur, 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 32.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 80 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Very extreme.
- 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 27 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 728 official ha against 888 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.