Valluércanes fire, July 2022 Cerezo de Río Tirón, Valluércanes, Quintanilla San García
The fire started on 15 July 2022 in Valluércanes, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 534 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
Number 58 in Spain in 2022, of 192.
The power measured by the satellite is low (11.2 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
- 534ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 4days
- 15 Jul 2022 – 18 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 3
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 16MW
- 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 0 days 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?
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
-
Cerezo de Río Tirón 467 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the centre319 ha5.0 %
-
124 ha reached on 15 Jul4.4 %
-
Quintanilla San García 66 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre61 ha1.3 %
-
San Millán de Yécora 35 inhabitants · 1.6 km from the centre30 ha2.8 %
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 scrub52 %
- Agricultural areas48 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 1 %
- LIC Riberas del Río Tirón y afluentes ES4120075
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
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 15 July 2022 and burned 280 ha (the satellite measured 534 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Valluércanes 15 July 2022 · 14:00 280 ha · extinguished on 19 July 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jul | 38.3 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Jul after | 32.0 °C | 17 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 20 Jul after | 27.6 °C | 42 % | 39 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Jul after | 33.7 °C | 30 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Jul after | 23.3 °C | 66 % | 39 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 23 Jul after | 29.1 °C | 38 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 24 Jul after | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Jul after | 25.1 °C | 51 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Jul after | 23.8 °C | 50 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 27 Jul after | 26.6 °C | 37 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 28 Jul after | 28.4 °C | 36 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
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 · 3Every 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 Valluércanes fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 July 2022 to 18 July 2022 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 July 2022 to 18 July 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 534 hectares (5.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Cerezo de Río Tirón (319 ha, 5.0 %); Valluércanes (124 ha, 4.4 %); Quintanilla San García (61 ha, 1.3 %); San Millán de Yécora (30 ha, 2.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Valluércanes and came within 1.0 km of its centre. 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 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
- 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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 18 July 2022 → 15 July 2022.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 18 July 2022 to 18 July 2022. 3 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 280 official ha against 534 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.