Paüls fire, July 2025 Xerta, Alfara de Carles, Paüls
The fire started on 7 July 2025 in Alfara de Carles, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,787 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
Number 25 in Spain in 2025, of 158.
- Burnt area
- 2,787ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 3days
- 7 Jul 2025 – 9 Jul 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 7 Jul
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 194
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 52
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.1GW
- sum of detected power
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 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 42.1 mm on 12 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Xerta 1,180 inhabitants · 0.8 km from the town1,228 ha reached on 8 Jul38 %
-
Alfara de Carles 355 inhabitants · 1.3 km from the town750 ha reached on 8 Jul12 %
-
720 ha reached on 8 Jul16 %
-
Aldover 901 inhabitants · 1.1 km from the town92 ha reached on 8 Jul4.6 %
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 scrub51 %
- Coniferous forest28 %
- Agricultural areas12 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland3.7 %
- Other natural land2.7 %
- Mixed forest1.8 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 40 %
- ZEPA + LIC Sistema Prelitoral meridional ES5140011
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 2026We checked this page against 2 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- incendi de Paüls · incendio de Tarragona · incendio Paüls-Xerta
- Official area reported: 3,321 ha (the satellite measured 2,787 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 15 July 2025
Sources
- Los Bomberos dan por extinguido el incendio de Paüls, después de 9 días y de 3.321 hectáreas afectadas — COPE, 16 July 2025
- Extinguido el incendio de Paüls tras arrasar más de 3.300 hectáreas y causar la muerte de un bombero — Diari de Tarragona, 15 July 2025
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Jul | 31.7 °C | 32 % | 64 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 8 Jul | 29.9 °C | 29 % | 69 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 9 Jul | 26.3 °C | 45 % | 41 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 10 Jul after | 28.4 °C | 61 % | 46 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 24 |
| 11 Jul after | 27.5 °C | 63 % | 49 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 12 Jul after | 24.3 °C | 63 % | 32 km/h | 42.1 mm | Very low 0 |
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 10 July 2025 the air beside the fire reached 18 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 194Every 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 Paüls fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 7 July 2025 and 9 July 2025: 3 days between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,787 hectares (27.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Xerta (1,228 ha, 38 %); Alfara de Carles (750 ha, 12 %); Paüls (720 ha, 16 %); Aldover (92 ha, 4.6 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The closest fire to a town centre came within 0.8 km of Xerta. 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 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 69 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
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
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.