Skip to content
worldfires
ES · Spain · –

Les Gavarres fire, July 2026 Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura, La Bisbal d'Empordà, Santa Cristina d'Aro

Out · last detection 4 Jul 2026, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 3 July 2026 in Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,030 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

Number 17 in Spain in 2026, of 196.

Compare with…
Burnt area
2,030ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
≈ 2days
3 Jul 2026 – 4 Jul 2026
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
3 Jul
2026
Heat detections
201
in a single hotspot: 692 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
11.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jul4 Jul
4 Jul 2026

How it evolved, day by day

3 Jul 2026 · 22,220 MW · 182 4 Jul 2026 · 402 MW · 19
3 Jul 4 Jul

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (4 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

32°high
46km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 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 1.3% of the area of London (20 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. Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura 1,350 inhabitants · 3.9 km from the centre where it started
    1,393 ha reached on 3 Jul
    14 %
  2. La Bisbal d'Empordà 11,757 inhabitants · 2.1 km from the centre
    284 ha reached on 3 Jul
    14 %
  3. Santa Cristina d'Aro 5,987 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the centre
    190 ha reached on 3 Jul
    2.8 %
  4. Calonge i Sant Antoni 12,335 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre
    164 ha reached on 3 Jul
    4.9 %

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

  • Broadleaved forest81 %
  • Coniferous forest11 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland5.5 %
  • Agricultural areas2.0 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 98 %

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.

Checked against the press

Checked on 30 September 2026

We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendi de la Bisbal d'Empordà · Incendi de les Gavarres de 2026 · Incendio de las Gavarres
Official area reported: 2,200 ha (the satellite measured 2,030 ha)

Sources

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)
3 Jul 31.0 °C 35 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jul 31.5 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Jul after 32.2 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Jul after 31.5 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Jul after 30.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Jul after 33.7 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Jul after 33.1 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jul after 28.4 °C 48 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
11 Jul after 27.7 °C 61 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
12 Jul after 28.3 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Jul after 28.8 °C 54 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
14 Jul after 28.9 °C 63 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 39.9, a minimum humidity of 35% and 27 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 10.

FWI at the start 39.9
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 27
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Montredon-des-Corbières fire, July 2016
745 ha 2 days FWI 40.0 Min. humidity 33 % 141 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 20.7 mm on 22 Jul.

What happened to them

Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 10. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.

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
46km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 4 Jul, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain.

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 · 26 Jun 2026
After · 11 Jul 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 6 July 2026 the air beside the fire reached 76 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak76 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1079 µg/m³
Optical depth0.54
1 Jul3 Jul5 Jul
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 · 201Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Les Gavarres fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (3 July 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 4 July 2026 (2 days from 3 July 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,030 hectares (20.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Cruïlles, Monells i Sant Sadurní de l'Heura (1,393 ha, 14 %); La Bisbal d'Empordà (284 ha, 14 %); Santa Cristina d'Aro (190 ha, 2.8 %); Calonge i Sant Antoni (164 ha, 4.9 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 2.1 km of the centre of La Bisbal d'Empordà, 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 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.

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.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 201 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
  • 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.