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ES · Spain · –

Aznalcázar fire, May 2019 Aznalcázar

Out · last detection 1 Jun 2019, 02:38 UTC

The fire started on 31 May 2019 in Aznalcázar, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 220 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Sevilla since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 46 in Spain in 2019, of 102.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.1 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
220ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
31 May 2019 – 1 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
31 May
2019
Heat detections
11
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
30MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 May1 Jun
1 Jun 2019

How it evolved, day by day

31 May 2019 · 60 MW · 9 1 Jun 2019 · 1 MW · 2
31 May 1 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
39km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Aznalcázar 4,875 inhabitants · 23.0 km from the centre where it started
    220 ha reached on 31 May
    0.5 %

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 areas100 %

Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.

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)

Started with Extreme FWI: 13 % of the area in Spain Very dry air: 15 % of the area in Spain

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
31 May 34.1 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
1 Jun 34.6 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Jun after 34.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Jun after 33.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jun after 26.3 °C 45 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jun after 24.8 °C 30 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Jun after 24.1 °C 27 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Jun after 26.6 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Jun after 29.4 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jun after 27.1 °C 23 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jun after 26.2 °C 34 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Jun after 27.1 °C 33 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 59.6, a minimum humidity of 14% and 35 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.

FWI at the start 59.6
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 35
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Nerva fire, August 2016
119 ha 1 day FWI 57.0 Min. humidity 14 % 74 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
462 ha
median area
25 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.7 mm
rain at the end (median; 6 of 32 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 220 ha against a median of 462 ha. It lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

In 26 of 32, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.7 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
39km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Jun, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 6 of 32, with a median of 1.7 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 May 2019
After · 8 Jun 2019

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 29 May 2019 the air beside the fire reached 23 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak23 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1028 µg/m³
29 May31 May2 Jun4 Jun
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 · 11Every 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 Aznalcázar fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 May 2019 and 1 June 2019: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 220 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aznalcázar (220 ha, 0.5 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Aznalcázar and came within 23.0 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 34.6 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 32. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 462 ha; 25 % went past 1,000 ha. In 26 of 32, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.7 mm.

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.

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
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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. 11 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

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.