How long did the Vilamarín fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 13 October 2017 and 14 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 129 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Vilamarín (129 ha, 2.3 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.6 km of Vilamarín. 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 25.4 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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.

ES · Spain · 2017-10-13 → 2017-10-14

Vilamarín fire, October 2017 Vilamarín

Out · last detection 14 Oct 2017, 13:17 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2017 in Vilamarín, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 129 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 98th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 124 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

The power measured by the satellite is low (2.7 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: 129ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 2days; 13 Oct 2017 – 14 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 13 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 5; in a single hotspot: 3 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 10MW; sum of detected power

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct14 Oct

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

25°high

33km/h · peak gust

33%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.0 mm on 16 Oct.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Vilamarín 1,836 inhabitants · 2.6 km from the town where it started

129 ha reached on 14 Oct

2.3 %

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

Scrub and transitional woodland62 %
Mixed forest19 %
Other natural land9.3 %
Agricultural areas6.2 %
Broadleaved forest3.9 %

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

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 13 October 2017 and burned 163 ha (the satellite measured 129 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.

Vilamarín Pazos de Monte 13 October 2017 · 15:47 163 ha · extinguished on 17 October 2017 · cause: arson

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)
13 Oct	23.0 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
14 Oct	25.4 °C	33 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Oct after	28.4 °C	26 %	59 km/h	0.2 mm	High 30
16 Oct after	23.0 °C	37 %	48 km/h	14.0 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Oct 2017

After · 21 Oct 2017

Before After

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 15 October 2017 the air beside the fire reached 90 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak90 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM10136 µg/m³

WHO 15

11121314151617

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 · 5Every 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

All fires in Spain ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vilamarín fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 13 October 2017 and 14 October 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 129 hectares (1.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Vilamarín (129 ha, 2.3 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 2.6 km of Vilamarín. 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 25.4 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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

MITECO · Incendios forestales ↗
Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned