Skip to content
worldfires
ES · Spain · →

Vilardevós fire, August 2017 Vilardevós, Verín, Riós

Out · last detection 4 Aug 2017, 13:47 UTC

The fire started on 3 August 2017 in Vilardevós, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,360 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 3 August 2017 at 16:30 and declared extinguished on 7 August 2017.

It is the 20th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 20 in Spain in 2017, of 144.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.2 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
1,360ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
3 Aug 2017 – 4 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
3 Aug
2017
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
606MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Aug4 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

4

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
43km/h · peak gust
35%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 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. Vilardevós 1,616 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town where it started
    768 ha reached on 4 Aug
    5.0 %
  2. Verín 13,956 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town
    495 ha reached on 4 Aug
    5.3 %
  3. Riós 1,379 inhabitants · 5.9 km from the town
    99 ha reached on 4 Aug
    0.9 %

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

  • Other natural land91 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland4.5 %
  • Agricultural areas3.8 %
  • Broadleaved forest0.7 %

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

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 3 August 2017 and burned 1,372 ha (the satellite measured 1,360 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 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Gran incendio de Verín · Incendio de Verín y Vilardevós · Incendio de Vilamaior
Official area reported: 1,360 ha (the satellite measured 1,360 ha)

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)
3 Aug 27.8 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Aug 31.8 °C 35 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Aug after 27.7 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Aug after 29.4 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Aug after 24.5 °C 37 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Aug after 22.8 °C 26 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug after 21.1 °C 25 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Aug after 24.9 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Aug after 27.4 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Aug after 30.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Aug after 31.8 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Aug after 32.7 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jul 2017
After · 11 Aug 2017

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 3 August 2017 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
1234567
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 · 82Every 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 Vilardevós fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 3 August 2017 and 4 August 2017: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 3 August 2017 at 16:30 and declared extinguished on 7 August 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,360 hectares (13.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Vilardevós (768 ha, 5.0 %); Verín (495 ha, 5.3 %); Riós (99 ha, 0.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.3 km of Vilardevós. 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 31.8 °C, humidity dropped to 35 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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

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.