Almadén fire, July 2021 Almadén, Chillón, Alamillo
The fire started on 13 July 2021 in Almadén, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,141 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Ciudad Real since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 8 in Spain in 2021, of 120.
Compare with…
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
- 1,141ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 13 Jul 2021 – 13 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 13 Jul
- 2021
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 25 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.
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
-
1,106 ha4.6 %
-
Chillón 1,752 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the centre36 ha0.2 %
-
Alamillo 450 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre1 ha0.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas75 %
- Broadleaved forest18 %
- Other natural land5.2 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland1.6 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 12 July 2021 and burned 869 ha (the satellite measured 1,141 ha). The two figures differ a lot, so these may not be exactly the same fire: take them as nearby records.
- Chillón Dehesa de las Castilseras 12 July 2021 · 16:33 869 ha · extinguished on 13 July 2021 · cause: negligence
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 2026We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio forestal de Almadén · Incendio de la Dehesa de Castilseras
- Declared extinguished: 13 July 2021
Sources
- Extinguido el incendio de Almadén, tras afectar a 2.000 hectáreas de terreno — Castilla-La Mancha Media, 13 July 2021
- Extinguido el incendio forestal de Almadén, originado por un camión que iba a pasar la ITV — El Español - El Digital Castilla-La Mancha, 13 July 2021
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jul | 30.7 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 Jul after | 33.0 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jul after | 34.9 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Jul after | 37.6 °C | 15 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Jul after | 38.7 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 18 Jul after | 36.8 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Jul after | 37.2 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 20 Jul after | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Jul after | 36.9 °C | 11 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 22 Jul after | 38.9 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 23 Jul after | 35.0 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
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 11 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.8 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Almadén fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 13 July 2021 and 13 July 2021: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,141 hectares (11.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Almadén (1,106 ha, 4.6 %); Chillón (36 ha, 0.2 %); Alamillo (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Almadén and came within 2.1 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 30.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 869 official ha against 1,141 ha of perimeter; similar, but with reservations.
- Checked against news and agencies: 2 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.