How long did the Ciudad Real fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 15 July 2024 and 15 July 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ciudad Real (105 ha, 0.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Ciudad Real and came within 11.3 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 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

ES · Spain · 2024-07-15 → 2024-07-15

Ciudad Real fire, July 2024 Ciudad Real

Out · last measured on 15 Jul 2024

The fire started on 15 July 2024 in Ciudad Real, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 104 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 24th largest in Ciudad Real since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 78 in Spain in 2024, of 82.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ciudad Real · 2021 Fernán Caballero · 2018 Valenzuela de Calatrava · 2017 Argamasilla de Calatrava · 2024

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area: 104ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 1day; 15 Jul 2024 – 15 Jul 2024
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 15 Jul; 2024
Danger at start: 56; Extreme · FWI index

The weather it burned in

33°high

48km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 41 ha in 2021.

41 ha Ciudad Real fire, June 2021 527 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Ciudad Real 76,217 inhabitants · 11.3 km from the centre where it started

105 ha

0.4 %

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 land90 %
Agricultural areas9.6 %

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)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
15 Jul	33.1 °C	18 %	48 km/h	Extreme 56
16 Jul after	34.8 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Very high 45
17 Jul after	37.9 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Very high 48
18 Jul after	36.7 °C	15 %	42 km/h	Very high 45
19 Jul after	39.7 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Extreme 54
20 Jul after	36.0 °C	17 %	48 km/h	Extreme 61
21 Jul after	34.6 °C	19 %	30 km/h	Very high 50
22 Jul after	37.4 °C	12 %	28 km/h	Extreme 50
23 Jul after	39.9 °C	15 %	23 km/h	Very high 47
24 Jul after	41.5 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Extreme 55
25 Jul after	39.2 °C	15 %	32 km/h	Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Jul 2024

After · 22 Jul 2024

Before After

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 July 2024 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak22 µg/m³

Days over the guideline0 days

PM10100 µg/m³

Optical depth0.46

WHO 15

131415161718

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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Spain ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ciudad Real fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 15 July 2024 and 15 July 2024: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 104 hectares (1.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ciudad Real (105 ha, 0.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Ciudad Real and came within 11.3 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 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

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 ›

MITECO · Incendios forestales ↗
Protección Civil ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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. No 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.

Where it burned