Ávila fire, August 2025 Ávila, Tornadizos de Ávila, Herradón de Pinares
The fire started on 15 August 2025 in Ávila, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,942 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Ávila since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 24 in Spain in 2025, of 158.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,942ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 15 Aug 2025 – 16 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 53
- in a single hotspot: 340 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 2.1GW
- 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 2 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
-
2,322 ha reached on 15 Aug10 %
-
Tornadizos de Ávila 458 inhabitants · 7.0 km from the centre606 ha reached on 15 Aug6.3 %
-
Herradón de Pinares 526 inhabitants · 6.2 km from the centre13 ha reached on 15 Aug0.3 %
-
Ojos-Albos 308 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre5 ha0.1 %
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
- Other natural land74 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub24 %
- Agricultural areas2.0 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 41 %
- ZEPA + LIC Campo Azálvaro - Pinares de Peguerinos ES4110097 · ES0000189
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 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio de Tornadizos de Ávila · Incendio de Urraca-Miguel · IF El Herradón de Pinares
- Official area reported: 2,970 ha (the satellite measured 2,942 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 22 August 2025
Sources
- Incendio forestal en El Herradón extinguido tras una semana de labores intensas — Avilared, 23 August 2025
- El incendio de Herradón de Pinares baja a nivel 0 — Tribuna de Ávila, 18 August 2025
- Incendio nivel 2 en Tornadizos de Ávila con gran columna de humo — Avilared, 15 August 2025
- Evacuado Urraca Miguel por el incendio de El Herradón — Tribuna de Ávila, 15 August 2025
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Aug | 31.7 °C | 18 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Aug | 33.8 °C | 12 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Aug after | 33.7 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 18 Aug after | 29.4 °C | 16 % | 54 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 19 Aug after | 23.7 °C | 29 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Aug after | 21.4 °C | 29 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Aug after | 23.9 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 22 Aug after | 24.4 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 23 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 22 % | 46 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Aug after | 27.5 °C | 31 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
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 18 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 56 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 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)
Detections table · 53Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 792 haLas Navas del MarquésAugust 2025 · 2 days · 18 km away
- 4,460 haCebrerosJuly 2022 · 8 days · 19 km away
- 1,255 haNavas de San Antonio Vegas de MatuteAugust 2026 · 3 days · 23 km away
- 1,113 haRobledo de ChavelaAugust 2020 · 2 days · 29 km away
- 1,615 haNavaluengaJuly 2025 · 4 days · 31 km away
- 63,974 haBurgohondo El BarracoJuly 2026 · 19 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ávila fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 15 August 2025 and 16 August 2025: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,942 hectares (29.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Ávila (2,322 ha, 10 %); Tornadizos de Ávila (606 ha, 6.3 %); Herradón de Pinares (13 ha, 0.3 %); Ojos-Albos (5 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.8 km of the centre of Ojos-Albos, 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 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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. 53 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.
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.