Skip to content
worldfires
ES · Spain · →

Aranjuez fire, July 2022 Aranjuez

Out · last detection 6 Jul 2022, 12:13 UTC

The fire started on 6 July 2022 in Aranjuez, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 264 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 5 July 2022 at 17:22 and declared extinguished on 14 July 2022.

It is the 9th largest in Madrid since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 98 in Spain in 2022, of 196.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
264ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
6 Jul 2022 – 9 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
6 Jul
2022
Heat detections
1
in a single hotspot: 9 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
9MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jul9 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

6

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
42km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Aranjuez 63,040 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town where it started
    264 ha reached on 6 Jul
    1.4 %

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

  • Scrub and transitional woodland43 %
  • Broadleaved forest32 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub17 %
  • Agricultural areas6.0 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 89 %

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.

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 5 July 2022 and burned 262 ha (the satellite measured 264 ha).

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.

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)
6 Jul 32.5 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 55
7 Jul 33.4 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Jul 35.9 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Jul 38.1 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jul after 38.8 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jul after 38.9 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jul after 39.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 62
13 Jul after 40.3 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Jul after 41.6 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Jul after 40.4 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Jul after 40.3 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
17 Jul after 40.2 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
18 Jul after 40.3 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
19 Jul after 35.4 °C 15 % 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.

Before · 29 Jun 2022
After · 16 Jul 2022

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 6 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak17 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1044 µg/m³
456789101112
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 · 1Every 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 Aranjuez fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 July 2022 and 9 July 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 5 July 2022 at 17:22 and declared extinguished on 14 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 264 hectares (2.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aranjuez (264 ha, 1.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.3 km of Aranjuez. 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 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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

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
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.

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.