Burned area
satellite only819ha
Perimeter published by EFFIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- perimeter revised on 2 March 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
ES · Spain · –
Vega de Pas fire, 15 February 2019 Vega de Pas
Out · last detection 16 Feb 2019, 13:29 UTC
The fire started on 15 February 2019 in Vega de Pas, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 819 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 7th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 13 in Spain in 2019, of 102.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only2days
15 Feb 2019 to 16 Feb 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 16 Feb 2019, 13:29 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only15 Feb 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- EFFIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 15 Feb 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only17
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 10 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 15 Feb 2019 – 16 Feb 2019
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only38MW
Total radiative power on 15 February 2019; hotspots that day: 10.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 15 Feb 2019
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model3.1FWI · very low
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 3.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 15 Feb 2019, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model16.5°C · 37% RH
High of 16.5 °C and minimum humidity of 37% on 15 February 2019; gusts of 58 km/h on 16 February 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 15 Feb 2019 – 16 Feb 2019
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed perimeterEFFIS (Copernicus) revises the perimeter
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 819 ha
- Dates
- 15 Feb 2019 – 16 Feb 2019
- Name
- Vega de Pas
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/vega-de-pas-2019-02?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire vega-de-pas-2019-02.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-02-15 | 10 | 38 | 16.5 | 6.7 | 37 | 21.9 | 55.8 | 0 | 3.1 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2019-02-16 | 7 | 17 | 15.6 | 4.2 | 47 | 22.3 | 57.6 | 0 | 3.6 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2019-02-17 | 0 | 0 | 14.1 | 6 | 35 | 25.5 | 67.7 | 0 | 5.2 | bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-18 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 4.4 | 39 | 18.8 | 49.7 | 6.9 | 0.2 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-19 | 0 | 0 | 10.1 | 2.6 | 67 | 10.2 | 27.7 | 8.7 | 0 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-20 | 0 | 0 | 12.7 | 5.1 | 47 | 19.2 | 49.3 | 0 | 0.2 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-21 | 0 | 0 | 14.4 | 6.4 | 44 | 18.8 | 51.5 | 0 | 0.5 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-22 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 8.1 | 35 | 17.8 | 47.9 | 0 | 1.9 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-23 | 0 | 0 | 14.4 | 7.6 | 22 | 14.7 | 34.6 | 0 | 3.9 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-24 | 0 | 0 | 16.4 | 5.8 | 34 | 7.2 | 22 | 0 | 3.2 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-25 | 0 | 0 | 17.6 | 8.5 | 38 | 9.2 | 20.5 | 0 | 3.9 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-26 | 0 | 0 | 19.2 | 8.4 | 39 | 18.9 | 50.4 | 0 | 6.2 | bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-27 | 0 | 0 | 18.5 | 9.3 | 32 | 20.6 | 58.7 | 0 | 7.3 | bajo | 0 |
| 2019-02-28 | 0 | 0 | 12.2 | 4.9 | 65 | 10.2 | 29.5 | 0 | 3 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-03-01 | 0 | 0 | 12.1 | 5 | 64 | 10.4 | 29.9 | 0 | 2.6 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-03-02 | 0 | 0 | 13.1 | 6.4 | 55 | 10.2 | 29.9 | 0 | 2.8 | muy_bajo | 0 |
| 2019-03-03 | 0 | 0 | 15.9 | 7.2 | 26 | 30.6 | 85 | 0 | 10.8 | bajo | 0 |
| 2019-03-04 | 0 | 0 | 11.2 | 4.9 | 53 | 27.5 | 85 | 5.9 | 0.4 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: EFFIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 819ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 15 Feb 2019 – 16 Feb 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Feb
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 10 MW
- Danger at start
- 3
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 27MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
15 Feb16 Feb
16 Feb 2019
How it evolved, day by day
15 Feb
16 Feb
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
16°high
68km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.9 mm on 4 Mar.
This area had burned before
7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 59 ha in 2017.
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
-
820 ha reached on 15 Feb9.4 %
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
- Other natural land79 %
- Broadleaved forest20 %
- Agricultural areas0.7 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 89 %
- LIC Montaña oriental ES1300002
- LIC Río Pas ES1300010
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 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside 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
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)
Started with Strong wind: 26 % of the area in Spain
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Feb | 16.5 °C | 37 % | 56 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 16 Feb | 15.6 °C | 47 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 17 Feb after | 14.1 °C | 35 % | 68 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 5 |
| 18 Feb after | 12.0 °C | 39 % | 50 km/h | 6.9 mm | Very low 0 |
| 19 Feb after | 10.1 °C | 67 % | 28 km/h | 8.7 mm | Very low 0 |
| 20 Feb after | 12.7 °C | 47 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 21 Feb after | 14.4 °C | 44 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 22 Feb after | 16.0 °C | 35 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 23 Feb after | 14.4 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 24 Feb after | 16.4 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 25 Feb after | 17.6 °C | 38 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 4 |
| 26 Feb after | 19.2 °C | 39 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 6 |
| 27 Feb after | 18.5 °C | 32 % | 59 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 28 Feb after | 12.2 °C | 65 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 1 Mar after | 12.1 °C | 64 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 2 Mar after | 13.1 °C | 55 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 3 |
| 3 Mar after | 15.9 °C | 26 % | 85 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 4 Mar after | 11.2 °C | 53 % | 85 km/h | 5.9 mm | Very low 0 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 3.1, a minimum humidity of 37% and 3 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.
FWI at the start
3.1
Minimum humidity
37 %
Days without rain
3
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Vega de Pas fire, 15 February 2019
819 ha
2 days
FWI 3.1
Min. humidity 37 %
Vega de Pas fire, January 2022
131 ha
1 day
FWI 4.1
Min. humidity 37 %
4 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 16.0 mm on 4 Jan.
Rionansa fire, April 2024
355 ha
1 day
FWI 3.9
Min. humidity 37 %
59 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.0 mm on 7 Apr.
Lamasón fire, April 2024
118 ha
1 day
FWI 3.6
Min. humidity 36 %
62 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 13.0 mm on 7 Apr.
Vega de Pas fire, February 2023
151 ha
2 days
FWI 3.8
Min. humidity 37 %
2 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.8 mm on 21 Feb.
Cabuérniga fire, February 2021
294 ha
1 day
FWI 2.3
Min. humidity 38 %
54 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 9.9 mm on 21 Feb.
What happened to them
- 2 days
- median duration
- 227 ha
- median area
- 0 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 7.6 mm
- rain at the end (median; 27 of 27 had it)
It was 3.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.
Only 1 of its 27 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.6 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
5.9 mmfirst rain
4 Mar16 days after it ended
68km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 16 Feb, and on 4 Mar 5.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 27 of 27, with a median of 7.6 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 8 Feb 2019
After · 23 Feb 2019
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 23 February 2019 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 20: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1043 µg/m³
WHO 15
13 Feb16 Feb19 Feb22 Feb25 Feb
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
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 · 17Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 745 haVega de PasFebruary 2021 · 3 days · 0 km away
- 1,745 haVega de PasFebruary 2025 · 5 days · 1 km away
- 1,540 haSelaya24 February 2026 · 9 days · 5 km away
- 903 haVega de Pas15 February 2019 · 3 days · 5 km away
- 822 haSelaya20 February 2021 · 1 day · 6 km away
- 652 haSoba1 January 2022 · 1 day · 8 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Vega de Pas fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 February 2019 and 16 February 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 819 hectares (8.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Vega de Pas (820 ha, 9.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Vega de Pas and came within 4.3 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 16.5 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 68 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 5, class 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 27. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 227 ha; 0 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 27 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 7.6 mm.
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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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. 17 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- 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.