Palomeque fire, July 2022 Palomeque, Lominchar, Chozas de Canales
The fire started on 11 July 2022 in Palomeque, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 220 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 12 July 2022 at 00:09 and declared extinguished on 13 July 2022.
It is the 14th largest in Toledo since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 106 in Spain in 2022, of 192.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
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- Burnt area
- 220ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 11 Jul 2022 – 12 Jul 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- municipalities
- Started on
- 11 Jul
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 15
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 70MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
12 Jul 2022 · 70 MW · 15
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 57 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
-
172 ha reached on 12 Jul7.8 %
-
Lominchar 2,989 inhabitants · 3.2 km from the centre47 ha reached on 12 Jul2.1 %
-
Chozas de Canales 5,044 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre0 ha0.0 %
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
- Agricultural areas76 %
- Other natural land15 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland8.8 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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 12 July 2022 and burned 186 ha (the satellite measured 220 ha).
- Palomeque Rio Guadarrama 12 July 2022 · 00:09 186 ha · extinguished on 13 July 2022 · 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Jul | 39.2 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Jul | 39.4 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Jul after | 40.7 °C | 12 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 14 Jul after | 41.7 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 15 Jul after | 40.8 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 16 Jul after | 40.7 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 17 Jul after | 40.7 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 18 Jul after | 40.5 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 19 Jul after | 34.3 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Jul after | 37.4 °C | 11 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Jul after | 38.8 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Jul after | 38.3 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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 14 July 2022 the air beside the fire reached 22 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.0 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 · 15Every 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 Palomeque fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 11 July 2022 and 12 July 2022: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 12 July 2022 at 00:09 and declared extinguished on 13 July 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 220 hectares (2.2 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Palomeque (172 ha, 7.8 %); Lominchar (47 ha, 2.1 %); Chozas de Canales (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 2.2 km of the centre of Chozas de Canales, 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 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.
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How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 15 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 186 official ha against 220 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.