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Fernán Caballero fire, July 2018 Fernán Caballero, Miguelturra

Out · last detection 2 Jul 2018, 13:21 UTC

The fire started on 2 July 2018 in Fernán Caballero, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 232 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 2 July 2018 at 12:26 and declared extinguished on 3 July 2018.

It is the 13th largest in Ciudad Real since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 7 in Spain in 2018, of 23.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Picón · 2016Ciudad Real · 2024Malagón · 2022Ciudad Real · 2021

Burnt area
232ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
2 Jul 2018 – 2 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
2 Jul
2018
Heat detections
19
in a single hotspot: 210 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Average daily power
1.7GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jul2 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

2 Jul 2018 · 1,682 MW · 19

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

The weather it burned in

28°high
34km/h · peak gust
30%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 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. Fernán Caballero 965 inhabitants · 3.0 km from the centre where it started
    137 ha reached on 2 Jul
    1.3 %
  2. Miguelturra
    96 ha reached on 2 Jul
    0.8 %

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 scrub41 %
  • Agricultural areas36 %
  • Mixed forest19 %
  • Broadleaved forest3.5 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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 2 July 2018 and burned 191 ha (the satellite measured 232 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.

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)
2 Jul 28.5 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Jul after 32.7 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Jul after 27.9 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jul after 29.6 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Jul after 33.3 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Jul after 35.3 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jul after 35.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Jul after 36.5 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jul after 35.5 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Jul after 33.5 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 52
12 Jul after 33.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jun 2018
After · 9 Jul 2018

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 30 June 2018 the air beside the fire reached 15 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak15 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1026 µg/m³
3012345
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 · 19Every 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 Fernán Caballero fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 2 July 2018 and 2 July 2018: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 2 July 2018 at 12:26 and declared extinguished on 3 July 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 232 hectares (2.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Fernán Caballero (137 ha, 1.3 %); Miguelturra (96 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Fernán Caballero and came within 3.0 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 28.5 °C, humidity dropped to 30 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, 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 · 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

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 19 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 191 official ha against 232 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • 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 2020, 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.