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ES · Spain · –

Casar de Cáceres fire, August 2025 Casar de Cáceres, Cáceres, Arroyo de la Luz

Out · last detection 16 Aug 2025, 02:14 UTC

The fire started on 15 August 2025 in Casar de Cáceres, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,614 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Cáceres since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 20 in Spain in 2025, of 158.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pasarón de la Vera · 2024Alía · 2024Cáceres · 2016Aliseda · 2025

Burnt area
3,614ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
15 Aug 2025 – 16 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit
3
municipalities
Started on
15 Aug
2025
Heat detections
40
in a single hotspot: 244 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
884MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Aug16 Aug
16 Aug 2025

How it evolved, day by day

15 Aug 2025 · 1,670 MW · 12 16 Aug 2025 · 97 MW · 28
15 Aug 16 Aug

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
32km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 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?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Casar de Cáceres where it started
    2,122 ha reached on 15 Aug
    16 %
  2. Cáceres 4,511 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the centre
    1,357 ha reached on 16 Aug
    0.8 %
  3. Arroyo de la Luz 5,495 inhabitants · 5.9 km from the centre
    141 ha reached on 15 Aug
    1.1 %

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 land62 %
  • Agricultural areas23 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub11 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland3.3 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area3.6 ha
Residents≈ 150

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.6 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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

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 Casar de Cáceres y Arroyo de la Luz · incendio de Las Viñas de la Mata

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)
15 Aug 39.7 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Aug 40.6 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 42
17 Aug after 40.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 49
18 Aug after 33.2 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Aug after 31.6 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Aug after 30.1 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Aug after 31.5 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
22 Aug after 33.6 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Aug after 34.7 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Aug after 33.1 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Aug after 34.8 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Aug after 35.7 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.4, a minimum humidity of 15% and 51 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 26.

FWI at the start 49.4
Minimum humidity 15 %
Days without rain 51
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Pasarón de la Vera fire, August 2024
188 ha 1 day FWI 50.6 Min. humidity 14 % 80 km away, in 2024

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

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
497 ha
median area
35 %
went past 1,000 ha
5.2 mm
rain at the end (median; 10 of 26 had it)

It was 7.3 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 2 days, against 2 days.

Only 2 of its 26 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 16 of 26, 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 5.2 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
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Aug, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 10 of 26, with a median of 5.2 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 · 8 Aug 2025
After · 23 Aug 2025

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 18 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak95 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM10139 µg/m³
Optical depth0.72
13 Aug15 Aug17 Aug19 Aug
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 · 40Every 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 Casar de Cáceres 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 3,614 hectares (36.1 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Casar de Cáceres (2,122 ha, 16 %); Cáceres (1,357 ha, 0.8 %); Arroyo de la Luz (141 ha, 1.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 3.8 km of the centre of Cáceres, 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 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.
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: 26. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 497 ha; 35 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 26 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 16 of 26, 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 5.2 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.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 40 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 3 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.