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Gibraleón fire, May 2026 Gibraleón, Huelva

Out · last detection 1 Jun 2026, 02:22 UTC

The fire started on 31 May 2026 in Gibraleón, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 295 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Huelva since 2016 (of 36 with a page). Number 80 in Spain in 2026, of 195.

Burnt area
295ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
31 May 2026 – 31 May 2026
Municipalities hit
2
municipalities
Started on
31 May
2026
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
103MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Jun 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 May31 May

How it evolved, day by day

311

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
30km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 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. Gibraleón 13,261 inhabitants · 3.8 km from the town where it started
    181 ha reached on 31 May
    0.6 %
  2. Huelva 143,215 inhabitants · 4.6 km from the town
    115 ha reached on 2 Jun
    0.8 %

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

  • Other natural land78 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland22 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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.

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)
31 May 35.7 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Jun after 35.0 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jun after 30.5 °C 30 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jun after 33.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jun after 30.1 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jun after 29.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jun after 31.1 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jun after 31.0 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Jun after 33.0 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Jun after 33.3 °C 25 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Jun after 32.1 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 May 2026
After · 7 Jun 2026

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 29 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 19 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak19 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1038 µg/m³
Optical depth0.17
293031123
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 · 23Every 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 Gibraleón fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 31 May 2026 and 31 May 2026: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 295 hectares (3.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gibraleón (181 ha, 0.6 %); Huelva (115 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 3.8 km of Gibraleón. 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 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, 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

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.