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ES · Spain · –

Vega de Pas fire, March 2025 Vega de Pas, Espinosa de los Monteros

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2025, 02:49 UTC

The fire started on 6 March 2025 in Vega de Pas, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 302 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 38th largest in Cantabria since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 85 in Spain in 2025, of 158.

The power measured by the satellite is low (4.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
302ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
6 Mar 2025 – 7 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
6 Mar
2025
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 5 MW
Danger at start
1
Very low · FWI index
Average daily power
12MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Mar7 Mar
7 Mar 2025

How it evolved, day by day

6 Mar 2025 · 22 MW · 9 7 Mar 2025 · 1 MW · 1
6 Mar 7 Mar

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
64km/h · peak gust
51%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.0 mm on 8 Mar.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 58 ha in 2018, 139 ha in 2019, 130 ha in 2020, 162 ha in 2021, 87 ha in 2022, 165 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 260 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Vega de Pas 776 inhabitants · 3.1 km from the centre where it started
    302 ha reached on 6 Mar
    3.4 %
  2. Espinosa de los Monteros 1,627 inhabitants · 17.2 km from the centre
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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 land97 %
  • Broadleaved forest3.2 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 40 %

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.

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)
6 Mar 15.0 °C 55 % 64 km/h 0.5 mm Very low 1
7 Mar 16.1 °C 51 % 61 km/h 0.2 mm Very low 2
8 Mar after 14.8 °C 52 % 75 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 0

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 0.9, a minimum humidity of 55% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 40.

FWI at the start 0.9
Minimum humidity 55 %
Days without rain 2
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Miera fire, March 2022
112 ha 1 day FWI 0.9 Min. humidity 54 % 18 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.3 mm on 22 Mar.

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
149 ha
median area
2 %
went past 1,000 ha
6.4 mm
rain at the end (median; 40 of 40 had it)

It was 2.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 1 day.

Only 5 of its 40 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 6.4 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

4.0 mmfirst rain
8 Marthe day after it ended
64km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Mar, and on 8 Mar 4.0 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 40 of 40, with a median of 6.4 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Feb 2025
After · 14 Mar 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 5 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 10 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak10 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1020 µg/m³
Optical depth0.36
4 Mar6 Mar8 Mar10 Mar
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 · 10Every 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 Vega de Pas fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 March 2025 and 7 March 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 302 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vega de Pas (302 ha, 3.4 %); Espinosa de los Monteros (0 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Vega de Pas and came within 3.1 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 16.1 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 64 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, class Very 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: 40. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 149 ha; 2 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 5 of its 40 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 6.4 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.

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. 10 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.

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.