Almadén fire, July 2022 Abenójar, Almadén
The fire started on 25 July 2022 in Almadén, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,935 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 25 July 2022 at 14:14 and declared extinguished on 28 July 2022.
It is the 2th largest in Ciudad Real since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 29 in Spain in 2022, of 192.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 1,935ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 25 Jul 2022 – 26 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 25 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 15
- in a single hotspot: 63 MW
- Danger at start
- 70
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 50MW
- 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 38 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
-
Abenójar 1,309 inhabitants · 13.8 km from the centre1,651 ha reached on 26 Jul3.9 %
-
288 ha reached on 25 Jul1.2 %
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 areas30 %
- Coniferous forest28 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland22 %
- Broadleaved forest14 %
- Other natural land3.4 %
- Mixed forest3.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 96 %
- ZEPA + LIC Sierra de Los Canalizos ES4220013
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 0.17 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 25 July 2022 and burned 1,564 ha (the satellite measured 1,935 ha).
- Almadén Los Pilones/La Ribera 25 July 2022 · 14:14 1,564 ha · extinguished on 28 July 2022 · 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 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendio de Almadén · incendio Almadén-Saceruela · incendio de Saceruela y Abenójar
- Declared extinguished: 29 July 2022
Sources
- El Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha reitera la petición de máxima responsabilidad ante el riesgo extremo de incendios forestales — Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, 26 July 2022 · official source
- Extinguidos todos los incendios declarados en lo que va de semana en Castilla-La Mancha, la peor del verano — eldiario.es Castilla-La Mancha, 29 July 2022
- Los incendios de Malagón, Almadén y Humanes tienen una evolución favorable — El Español - El Digital Castilla-La Mancha, 26 July 2022
- Medios aéreos y terrestres siguen atacando los incendios de Malagón y Almadén-Saceruela — Lanza Digital, 26 July 2022
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Jul | 37.1 °C | 11 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 26 Jul | 35.4 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 27 Jul after | 33.8 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Jul after | 34.7 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 29 Jul after | 36.6 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Jul after | 37.1 °C | 17 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 31 Jul after | 38.0 °C | 13 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Aug after | 38.6 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Aug after | 38.2 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Aug after | 37.8 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 4 Aug after | 36.8 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Aug after | 36.7 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
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.
Detections table · 15Every 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 Almadén fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 25 July 2022 and 26 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 25 July 2022 at 14:14 and declared extinguished on 28 July 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,935 hectares (19.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Abenójar (1,651 ha, 3.9 %); Almadén (288 ha, 1.2 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 13.8 km of the centre of Abenójar, 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 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Extreme.
- 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. 15 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,564 official ha against 1,935 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.