Liétor fire, July 2021 Hellín, Liétor
The fire started on 24 July 2021 in Liétor, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,131 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 24 July 2021 at 14:15 and declared extinguished on 28 July 2021.
It is the 2th largest in Albacete since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 4 in Spain in 2021, of 124.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Liétor · 2016Férez · 2020Hellín · 2020Tobarra · 2021
- Burnt area
- 2,131ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 24 Jul 2021 – 25 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Jul
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 37
- in a single hotspot: 103 MW
- Danger at start
- 64
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 554MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 33 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 26 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Hellín 30,836 inhabitants · 7.9 km from the centre2,117 ha reached on 24 Jul2.7 %
-
16 ha reached on 24 Jul0.0 %
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 scrub60 %
- Other natural land23 %
- Coniferous forest8.4 %
- Agricultural areas8.1 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 89 %
- ZEPA + LIC Sierra de Alcaraz y Segura y cañones del Segura y del Mundo ES4210008
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 1.6 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (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 24 July 2021 and burned 1,933 ha (the satellite measured 2,131 ha).
- Liétor Collado de Sillero 24 July 2021 · 14:15 1,933 ha · extinguished on 28 July 2021 · cause: arson
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.
Checked against the press
Checked on 30 September 2026We checked this page against 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio del Talave · Incendio de Liétor · Incendio Liétor-Hellín
- Official area reported: 2,500 ha (the satellite measured 2,131 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 28 July 2021
Sources
- Extinguido el incendio del Talave, entre Liétor y Hellín — El Digital de Albacete, 28 July 2021
- Estabilizado el fuego de Liétor y desconfinada la pedanía de Mingogil — En Tomelloso, 25 July 2021
- El incendio de Liétor (Albacete), estabilizado tras quemar 2.500 hectáreas — COPE, 25 July 2021
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul | 36.8 °C | 12 % | 58 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 25 Jul | 34.1 °C | 17 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 26 Jul after | 28.5 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 2.1 mm | Moderate 16 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 24 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 30 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 37Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Liétor fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2021 and 25 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 24 July 2021 at 14:15 and declared extinguished on 28 July 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,131 hectares (21.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Hellín (2,117 ha, 2.7 %); Liétor (16 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 7.9 km of the centre of Hellín, 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 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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 ›
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 37 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,933 official ha against 2,131 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.