Bédar fire, July 2026 Bédar, Lubrín, Los Gallardos
The fire started on 9 July 2026 in Bédar, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,400 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Almeria since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 8 in Spain in 2026, of 195.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 5,400ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 9 Jul 2026 – 10 Jul 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- municipalities
- Started on
- 9 Jul
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 131
- in a single hotspot: 174 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 3.5GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
10 Jul 2026 · 3,494 MW · 131
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 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 103 ha in 2025.
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
-
3,406 ha reached on 10 Jul73 %
-
Lubrín 1,434 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town1,212 ha reached on 10 Jul8.8 %
-
696 ha reached on 10 Jul20 %
-
Antas 3,472 inhabitants · 4.4 km from the town85 ha reached on 10 Jul0.9 %
-
Sorbas 2,564 inhabitants · 9.6 km from the town10 ha0.0 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub68 %
- Other natural land22 %
- Agricultural areas7.6 %
- Coniferous forest1.1 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland0.9 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 72 %
- LIC Sierra de Cabrera-Bédar ES6110005
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 29 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio de Almería · Incendio de Almocáizar · Incendio de Bédar
- Official area reported: 5,200 ha (the satellite measured 5,400 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 24 July 2026
Sources
- Extinguido el incendio de Los Gallardos tras dos semanas, 13 fallecidos y 5.200 hectáreas arrasadas — La Voz de Almería, 25 July 2026
- Fin del incendio de Los Gallardos: extinguido tras dos semanas el fuego que causó la muerte de 13 personas — elDiario.es, 24 July 2026
- Así te hemos contado la última hora del incendio de Almería (directo) — elDiario.es, 12 July 2026
- Última hora de los incendios en España, en directo (Los Gallardos) — Infobae, 11 July 2026
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Jul | 39.0 °C | 8 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 10 Jul | 35.3 °C | 12 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Jul after | 30.2 °C | 44 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 12 Jul after | 32.8 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 13 Jul after | 34.3 °C | 25 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 14 Jul after | 35.7 °C | 25 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 21 |
| 15 Jul after | 40.2 °C | 14 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 16 Jul after | 42.2 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Jul after | 40.3 °C | 14 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Jul after | 37.0 °C | 21 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Jul after | 37.2 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Jul after | 41.5 °C | 10 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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 13 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 53 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 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 · 131Every 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 Bédar fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 July 2026 to 10 July 2026 (2 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 July 2026 to 9 July 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,400 hectares (54.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Bédar (3,406 ha, 73 %); Lubrín (1,212 ha, 8.8 %); Los Gallardos (696 ha, 20 %); Antas (85 ha, 0.9 %); Sorbas (10 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.3 km of Bédar. 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 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class High.
- 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 9 July 2026 to 9 July 2026. 131 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.