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Alburquerque fire, 14 August 2025 Alburquerque, Herreruela, Cáceres

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2025, 02:14 UTC

The fire started on 14 August 2025 in Alburquerque, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,346 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Badajoz since 2016 (of 52 with a page). Number 29 in Spain in 2025, of 158.

Burnt area
2,346ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
14 Aug 2025 – 16 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
14 Aug
2025
Heat detections
57
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
589MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Aug 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Aug16 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

141516

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
37km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 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. Alburquerque 4,928 inhabitants · 19.6 km from the town where it started
    1,977 ha reached on 14 Aug
    2.7 %
  2. Herreruela 322 inhabitants · 8.8 km from the town
    311 ha reached on 15 Aug
    2.7 %
  3. Cáceres 4,511 inhabitants · 41.0 km from the town
    66 ha reached on 15 Aug
    0.0 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub35 %
  • Agricultural areas25 %
  • Other natural land22 %
  • Coniferous forest6.4 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland6.3 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 97 %

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 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendio de Alburquerque · Incendio Alburquerque-Herreruela · Incendio de Casa Liebres (Alburquerque)
Declared stabilised: 18 August 2025

Sources

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 Aug 38.8 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Aug 38.3 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Aug 40.7 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Aug after 40.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Aug after 34.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Aug after 31.7 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug after 30.4 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Aug after 30.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Aug after 33.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Aug after 34.1 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Aug after 32.4 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Aug after 34.1 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Aug after 34.6 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Aug 2025
After · 23 Aug 2025

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 18 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak57 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1086 µg/m³
Optical depth0.53
1213141516171819
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 · 57Every 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 Alburquerque fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 August 2025 and 16 August 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,346 hectares (23.5 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Alburquerque (1,977 ha, 2.7 %); Herreruela (311 ha, 2.7 %); Cáceres (66 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 8.8 km of Herreruela. 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 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

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
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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.