Carcaixent fire, June 2016 Carcaixent, Simat de la Valldigna, Alzira
The fire started on 16 June 2016 in Carcaixent, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,204 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 16 June 2016 at 17:03 and declared extinguished on 25 June 2016.
Number 5 in Spain in 2016, of 69.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,204ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 16 Jun 2016 – 18 Jun 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 16 Jun
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 96
- in a single hotspot: 36 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 383MW
- 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 18 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
-
1,944 ha reached on 17 Jun33 %
-
Simat de la Valldigna 3,311 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the centre254 ha reached on 17 Jun6.6 %
-
Alzira 48,236 inhabitants · 5.0 km from the centre8 ha reached on 17 Jun0.1 %
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
- Sclerophyllous scrub68 %
- Other natural land24 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland3.4 %
- Agricultural areas2.3 %
- Coniferous forest1.1 %
- Artificial surfaces1.1 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Inside the perimeter there were about 1.9 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 16 June 2016 and burned 2,240 ha (the satellite measured 2,204 ha).
- Carcaixent Puig Gros 16 June 2016 · 17:03 2,240 ha · extinguished on 25 June 2016 · cause: arson
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 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendi de Carcaixent · Incendio de Aigües Vives / Pla de la Mula (zona afectada)
- Official area reported: 2,200 ha (the satellite measured 2,204 ha)
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 19 June 2016
Sources
- Controlat l'incendi de Carcaixent després de cremar 2.200 hectàrees — Ara (Pais Valencia), 20 June 2016
- Dan por controlado el incendio de Carcaixent tras arrasar 2.200 hectáreas — eldiario.es (Comunitat Valenciana), 20 June 2016
- 17-06-2016 Incendio forestal en Carcaixent — ADENE (asociación ecologista, GEIFA), 17 June 2016
- El incendio de Carcaixent sigue sin control pero el término de Simat no corre peligro — Safor Guia, 17 June 2016
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Jun | 27.0 °C | 16 % | 49 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 50 |
| 17 Jun | 28.1 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Jun | 22.3 °C | 40 % | 38 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 19 Jun after | 25.7 °C | 27 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 20 Jun after | 25.2 °C | 37 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 21 Jun after | 28.6 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Jun after | 28.0 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Jun after | 29.8 °C | 30 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 24 Jun after | 33.0 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Jun after | 27.6 °C | 44 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 26 Jun after | 26.5 °C | 47 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Jun after | 27.5 °C | 37 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 28 Jun after | 29.1 °C | 33 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
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 15 June 2016 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 96Every 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 Carcaixent fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 June 2016 to 18 June 2016 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 June 2016 to 17 June 2016. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 16 June 2016 at 17:03 and declared extinguished on 25 June 2016.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,204 hectares (22.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Carcaixent (1,944 ha, 33 %); Simat de la Valldigna (254 ha, 6.6 %); Alzira (8 ha, 0.1 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Carcaixent and came within 3.6 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 28.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 June 2016 to 17 June 2016. 96 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 2,240 official ha against 2,204 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.