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Llutxent fire, August 2018 Llutxent, Gandia, Pinet

Out · last detection 8 Aug 2018, 13:28 UTC

The fire started on 6 August 2018 in Llutxent, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 3,228 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 8 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 6 August 2018 at 14:37 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2018.

The largest in Spain in 2018, of 23.

Burnt area
3,228ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
3days
6 Aug 2018 – 8 Aug 2018
Municipalities hit
8
municipalities
Started on
6 Aug
2018
Heat detections
166
in a single hotspot: 124 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Aug 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Aug8 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

678

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
62km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.9 mm on 10 Aug.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Llutxent 2,314 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the town where it started
    1,168 ha reached on 6 Aug
    29 %
  2. Gandia 83,135 inhabitants · 6.7 km from the town
    1,039 ha reached on 7 Aug
    17 %
  3. Pinet
    768 ha reached on 7 Aug
    65 %
  4. Ador
    184 ha reached on 7 Aug
    13 %
  5. Barx 1,501 inhabitants · 1.5 km from the town
    60 ha reached on 7 Aug
    3.7 %
  6. Rótova 1,283 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the town
    10 ha
    1.3 %
  7. Quatretonda 2,174 inhabitants · 6.3 km from the town
    3 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.1 %
  8. Palma de Gandía
    1 ha
    0.1 %

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

  • Sclerophyllous scrub54 %
  • Other natural land31 %
  • Agricultural areas8.2 %
  • Coniferous forest2.9 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.4 %
  • Artificial surfaces1.1 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland0.9 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 65 %

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.

Official record

According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 6 August 2018 and burned 2,952 ha (the satellite measured 3,228 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.

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 Llutxent · incendio de Llutxent-Pinet · incendio de Gandía (La Drova)
Official area reported: 3,270 ha (the satellite measured 3,228 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)
6 Aug 33.1 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Aug 32.9 °C 32 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Aug 27.8 °C 55 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
9 Aug after 29.6 °C 38 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Aug after 23.3 °C 74 % 46 km/h 10.9 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jul 2018
After · 15 Aug 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 8 August 2018 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1040 µg/m³
4567891011
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 · 166Every 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 Llutxent fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 August 2018 and 8 August 2018: 3 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 6 August 2018 at 14:37 and declared extinguished on 12 August 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 3,228 hectares (32.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 8 municipalities: Llutxent (1,168 ha, 29 %); Gandia (1,039 ha, 17 %); Pinet (768 ha, 65 %); Ador (184 ha, 13 %); Barx (60 ha, 3.7 %); Rótova (10 ha, 1.3 %); Quatretonda (3 ha, 0.1 %); Palma de Gandía (1 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 1.5 km of Barx. 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 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 62 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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

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.