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Vilardevós fire, September 2020 Vilardevós, Verín

Out · last measured on 14 Sept 2020

The fire started on 14 September 2020 in Vilardevós, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 279 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 September 2020 at 01:04 and declared extinguished on 16 September 2020.

It is the 62th largest in Ourense since 2016 (of 118 with a page). Number 38 in Spain in 2020, of 89.

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We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
279ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
14 Sept 2020 – 14 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
14 Sept
2020
Danger at start
7
Low · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

28°high
61km/h · peak gust
40%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.5 mm on 17 Sept.

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 · 3.4 km from the centre where it started
    227 ha
    1.5 %
  2. Verín 13,956 inhabitants · 9.2 km from the centre
    52 ha
    0.6 %

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 land100 %

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

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 14 September 2020 and burned 290 ha (the satellite measured 279 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.

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)
14 Sept 27.8 °C 40 % 61 km/h 5.5 mm Low 7
15 Sept after 25.9 °C 38 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
16 Sept after 26.8 °C 36 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
17 Sept after 25.8 °C 48 % 53 km/h 7.5 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Sept 2020
After · 21 Sept 2020

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 14 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1035 µg/m³
121314151617
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Spain ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Vilardevós fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 September 2020 and 14 September 2020: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 September 2020 at 01:04 and declared extinguished on 16 September 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 279 hectares (2.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Vilardevós (227 ha, 1.5 %); Verín (52 ha, 0.6 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Vilardevós and came within 3.4 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 27.8 °C, humidity dropped to 40 % and gusts hit 61 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 7, 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.

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

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. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 290 official ha against 279 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • 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.