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Valverdejo fire, July 2019 Barchín del Hoyo, Gabaldón, Piqueras del Castillo

Out · last detection 31 Jul 2019, 13:34 UTC

The fire started on 30 July 2019 in Valverdejo, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,523 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 30 July 2019 at 14:25 and declared extinguished on 6 August 2019.

Number 4 in Spain in 2019, of 102.

Burnt area
2,523ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
30 Jul 2019 – 31 Jul 2019
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
30 Jul
2019
Heat detections
127
in a single hotspot: 200 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jul 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jul31 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

3031

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
53km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Barchín del Hoyo 104 inhabitants · 3.5 km from the town
    1,722 ha reached on 30 Jul
    26 %
  2. Gabaldón 146 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the town
    492 ha reached on 30 Jul
    5.9 %
  3. Piqueras del Castillo 36 inhabitants · 1.7 km from the town
    275 ha reached on 31 Jul
    6.0 %
  4. Valverdejo 86 inhabitants · 4.8 km from the town where it started
    37 ha reached on 30 Jul
    1.1 %

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

  • Coniferous forest66 %
  • Mixed forest15 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub4.4 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland1.6 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 30 July 2019 and burned 2,591 ha (the satellite measured 2,523 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 2 October 2026

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

Also known as
Incendio de Valverdejo · Incendio de Barchín · Incendio forestal de Valverdejo (Cuenca)
Official area reported: 2,822 ha (the satellite measured 2,523 ha)
Declared extinguished: 6 August 2019

Sources

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)
30 Jul 33.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Jul 29.2 °C 39 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Aug after 34.2 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Aug after 35.4 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Aug after 35.4 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Aug after 35.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Aug after 35.7 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Aug after 35.1 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Aug after 29.2 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 54
8 Aug after 33.5 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Aug after 33.5 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Aug after 33.1 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jul 2019
After · 7 Aug 2019

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 · 127Every 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 Valverdejo fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 30 July 2019 and 31 July 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 30 July 2019 at 14:25 and declared extinguished on 6 August 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,523 hectares (25.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Barchín del Hoyo (1,722 ha, 26 %); Gabaldón (492 ha, 5.9 %); Piqueras del Castillo (275 ha, 6.0 %); Valverdejo (37 ha, 1.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.7 km of Piqueras del Castillo. 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 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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

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.

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.