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Cáceres fire, July 2016 Cáceres

Out · last detection 23 Jul 2016, 13:16 UTC

The fire started on 23 July 2016 in Cáceres, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,671 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 23 July 2016 at 14:40 and declared extinguished on 29 July 2016.

It is the 11th largest in Cáceres since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 10 in Spain in 2016, of 69.

Burnt area
1,671ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
23 Jul 2016 – 23 Jul 2016
Municipalities hit
1
municipalities
Started on
23 Jul
2016
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
608MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jul23 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

23

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
34km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 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. Cáceres 4,511 inhabitants · 13.9 km from the town where it started
    1,673 ha reached on 23 Jul
    1.0 %

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

  • Agricultural areas51 %
  • Other natural land25 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub12 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland12 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 1 %

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 23 July 2016 and burned 1,394 ha (the satellite measured 1,671 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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
incendio de Cáceres · incendio EX-100 Cáceres-Badajoz

Sources

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)
23 Jul 34.2 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jul after 36.1 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jul after 38.4 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jul after 39.9 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jul after 37.7 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jul after 38.7 °C 18 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jul after 38.5 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jul after 32.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jul after 32.6 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Aug after 35.3 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Aug after 37.6 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jul 2016
After · 30 Jul 2016

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 23 July 2016 the air beside the fire reached 11 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak11 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1018 µg/m³
212223242526
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 · 10Every 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 Cáceres fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 23 July 2016 and 23 July 2016: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 23 July 2016 at 14:40 and declared extinguished on 29 July 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,671 hectares (16.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cáceres (1,673 ha, 1.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 13.9 km of Cáceres. 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 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very 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
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.