Villablino fire, August 2025 Villablino, Cangas del Narcea, Somiedo
The fire started on 9 August 2025 in Villablino, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,285 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 9th largest in León since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 18 in Spain in 2025, of 158.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,285ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 11days
- 9 Aug 2025 – 19 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 613
- in a single hotspot: 423 MW
- Danger at start
- 11
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.3GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
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
It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.4 mm on 28 Aug.
This area had burned before
3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 125 ha in 2024.
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
-
1,764 ha reached on 9 Aug7.7 %
-
Cangas del Narcea 11,282 inhabitants · 15.2 km from the centre1,723 ha reached on 13 Aug2.1 %
-
Somiedo 1,031 inhabitants · 6.8 km from the centre799 ha reached on 15 Aug2.8 %
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 land90 %
- Broadleaved forest8.4 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland1.3 %
- Agricultural areas0.5 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- ZEPA + LIC Alto Sil ES0000210
- ZEPA Fuentes del Narcea y del Ibias ES0000055
- LIC Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña e Ibias ES1200056
- ZEPA + LIC Somiedo ES0000054
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.
Checked against the press
Checked on 30 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendio de Villablino · incendio de Laciana · incendio de Orallo-Caboalles
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 19 August 2025
Sources
- El agua de Orallo aparece contaminada por las cenizas de uno de los grandes incendios del verano pasado — iLeon (elDiario.es), 15 June 2026
- Un mes de agosto lleno de ceniza e impotencia — Leonoticias, 31 December 2025
- La Junta pone cifra al desastre del incendio de Orallo en Leon: 1.674 hectareas quemadas desde su inicio hace 40 dias — iLeon (elDiario.es), 18 September 2025
- El incendio de Orallo pasa a las Cabanas de Caboalles — Diario de Leon, 16 August 2025
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Aug | 23.6 °C | 40 % | 29 km/h | 0.9 mm | Low 11 |
| 10 Aug | 27.8 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 11 Aug | 25.6 °C | 22 % | 49 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 26 |
| 12 Aug | 25.5 °C | 22 % | 54 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 13 Aug | 21.8 °C | 36 % | 42 km/h | 1.2 mm | Low 9 |
| 14 Aug | 24.4 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 15 Aug | 27.1 °C | 17 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Aug | 26.7 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 17 Aug | 24.1 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Aug | 13.5 °C | 75 % | 31 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 19 Aug | 14.8 °C | 47 % | 36 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 20 Aug after | 12.8 °C | 56 % | 41 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 21 Aug after | 14.3 °C | 57 % | 34 km/h | 0.7 mm | Low 10 |
| 22 Aug after | 17.6 °C | 41 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 23 Aug after | 20.8 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 24 Aug after | 20.3 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.4 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 25 Aug after | 22.6 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 26 Aug after | 19.3 °C | 37 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 27 Aug after | 13.6 °C | 46 % | 43 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 28 Aug after | 12.1 °C | 45 % | 46 km/h | 1.4 mm | Low 8 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 13 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 76 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 613Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 1,550 haDegañaOctober 2017 · 5 days · 20 km away
- 8,001 haAnllares del Sil Páramo del SilAugust 2025 · 12 days · 24 km away
- 7,070 haFasgar Murias de ParedesAugust 2025 · 15 days · 29 km away
- 2,434 haPeranzanesSeptember 2016 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 3,251 haIbias15 October 2017 · 3 days · 34 km away
- 2,985 haIbias15 October 2017 · 3 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Villablino fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 August 2025 to 19 August 2025 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 August 2025 to 12 August 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,285 hectares (42.8 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Villablino (1,764 ha, 7.7 %); Cangas del Narcea (1,723 ha, 2.1 %); Somiedo (799 ha, 2.8 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 6.8 km of the centre of Somiedo, the closest of the areas it touched. 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 17 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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 · 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.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 August 2025 to 12 August 2025. 613 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.