Zaragoza fire, September 2020 Zaragoza
The fire started on 8 September 2020 in Zaragoza, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 389 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 11th largest in Zaragoza since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 28 in Spain in 2020, of 89.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 389ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 8 Sept 2020 – 9 Sept 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 8 Sept
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 11
- in a single hotspot: 72 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 64MW
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 12.7 mm on 18 Sept.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
391 ha reached on 8 Sept0.4 %
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 land66 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub34 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %
- LIC El Castellar ES2430080
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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Sept | 27.6 °C | 20 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Sept | 29.5 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Sept after | 30.6 °C | 24 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Sept after | 31.2 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Sept after | 31.8 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Sept after | 34.1 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 14 Sept after | 33.1 °C | 22 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 15 Sept after | 32.2 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Sept after | 33.2 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Sept after | 31.1 °C | 28 % | 39 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Sept after | 26.4 °C | 46 % | 51 km/h | 12.7 mm | Low 7 |
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 12 September 2020 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 11Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zaragoza fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 8 September 2020 and 9 September 2020: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 389 hectares (3.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Zaragoza (391 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Zaragoza and came within 16.7 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 29.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 11 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.
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.