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Almanza fire, August 2025 Almanza, Mantinos, Guardo

Out · last detection 18 Aug 2025, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 16 August 2025 in Almanza, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 6,862 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 7 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in León since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 13 in Spain in 2025, of 158.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Congosto de Valdavia · 2020Gradefes · 2023Boca de Huérgano · 2022Gradefes · 2026

Burnt area
6,862ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
16 Aug 2025 – 19 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
7
municipalities
Started on
16 Aug
2025
Heat detections
158
in a single hotspot: 330 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
2.5GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Aug19 Aug
18 Aug 2025

How it evolved, day by day

17 Aug 2025 · 4,786 MW · 131 18 Aug 2025 · 179 MW · 27
17 Aug 18 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
47km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 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?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.3% of the area of London (69 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Almanza 570 inhabitants · 4.0 km from the centre where it started
    2,467 ha reached on 17 Aug
    17 %
  2. Mantinos 142 inhabitants · 1.0 km from the centre
    1,380 ha reached on 17 Aug
    55 %
  3. Guardo 5,502 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre
    1,104 ha reached on 17 Aug
    18 %
  4. Villalba de Guardo 194 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre
    1,058 ha reached on 17 Aug
    31 %
  5. Cea
    766 ha reached on 17 Aug
    6.8 %
  6. Fresno del Río 169 inhabitants · 4.1 km from the centre
    61 ha reached on 18 Aug
    1.4 %
  7. Valderrueda 817 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the centre
    32 ha
    0.2 %

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

  • Coniferous forest40 %
  • Agricultural areas16 %
  • Broadleaved forest15 %
  • Mixed forest12 %
  • Other natural land9.3 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland5.0 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub2.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 12 %

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 2025
Built-up area6.3 ha
Residents≈ 250

Inside the perimeter there were about 6.3 hectares of built-up land and about 250 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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

Checked against the press

Checked on 29 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 Guardo · Incendio de Canalejas · Incendio de Almanza
Official area reported: 7,145 ha (the satellite measured 6,862 ha)
Declared stabilised: 24 August 2025

Sources

Official figures are measured differently from satellite ones and sometimes cover only part of the fire.

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)
16 Aug 33.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Aug 33.4 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Aug 27.0 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Aug 23.9 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
20 Aug after 20.6 °C 40 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 Aug after 21.6 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Aug after 24.2 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
23 Aug after 27.4 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Aug after 29.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Aug after 30.2 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Aug after 29.4 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Aug after 24.1 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Aug after 21.7 °C 26 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Aug after 22.9 °C 29 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Aug 2025
After · 26 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 19 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 518 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 221: 15 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak518 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10661 µg/m³
Optical depth2.17
141516171819202122
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 · 158Every 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 Almanza fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 16 August 2025 and 19 August 2025: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 6,862 hectares (68.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 7 municipalities: Almanza (2,467 ha, 17 %); Mantinos (1,380 ha, 55 %); Guardo (1,104 ha, 18 %); Villalba de Guardo (1,058 ha, 31 %); Cea (766 ha, 6.8 %); Fresno del Río (61 ha, 1.4 %); Valderrueda (32 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.0 km of the centre of Mantinos, 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 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 158 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.