Skip to content
worldfires
en
ES · Spain · →

Montiel fire, July 2022 Montiel, Cuarto del Madroño, Villarrodrigo

Out · last measured on 15 Jul 2022

The fire started on 15 July 2022 in Montiel, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 1,687 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 July 2022 at 14:45 and declared extinguished on 18 July 2022.

It is the 3th largest in Ciudad Real since 2016 (of 24 with a page). Number 32 in Spain in 2022, of 192.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Segura de la Sierra · 2017Yeste · 2017

We have the Copernicus perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
1,687ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
1day
15 Jul 2022 – 15 Jul 2022
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
15 Jul
2022
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Natura 2000
99%
of the perimeter is protected land

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

39°high
38km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 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 1.1% of the area of London (17 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. Montiel where it started
    1,022 ha
    3.8 %
  2. Cuarto del Madroño
    413 ha
    60 %
  3. Villarrodrigo 371 inhabitants · 10.3 km from the centre
    216 ha
    2.8 %
  4. Siles 2,067 inhabitants · 20.0 km from the centre
    37 ha
    0.2 %

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 scrub34 %
  • Other natural land30 %
  • Agricultural areas21 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland6.2 %
  • Broadleaved forest5.1 %
  • Mixed forest3.7 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 99 %

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 14 July 2022 and burned 1,433 ha (the satellite measured 1,687 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
Incendio de Villarrodrigo · Incendio de Montiel-Villarrodrigo · Incendio de Turruchel
Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 16 July 2022

Sources

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)
15 Jul 38.6 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jul after 38.0 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Jul after 37.3 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Jul after 38.7 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jul after 36.8 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jul after 38.2 °C 7 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jul after 37.7 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Jul after 38.8 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jul after 39.6 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Jul after 40.3 °C 7 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
25 Jul after 39.1 °C 6 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jul 2022
After · 22 Jul 2022

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 15 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 14 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak14 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1022 µg/m³
131415161718
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Spain ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Montiel fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 15 July 2022 and 15 July 2022: 1 day between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 14 July 2022 at 14:45 and declared extinguished on 18 July 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 1,687 hectares (16.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Montiel (1,022 ha, 3.8 %); Cuarto del Madroño (413 ha, 60 %); Villarrodrigo (216 ha, 2.8 %); Siles (37 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 10.3 km of the centre of Villarrodrigo, 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 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

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.

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 1,433 official ha against 1,687 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • 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.