Skip to content
worldfires
en
ES · Spain · →

Pinofranqueado fire, May 2023 Pinofranqueado, Torrecilla de los Ángeles, Hernán-Pérez

Out · last detection 20 May 2023, 03:10 UTC

The fire started on 17 May 2023 in Pinofranqueado, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 10,843 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 8 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 17 May 2023 at 21:44 and declared extinguished on 5 June 2023.

It is the 3th largest in Cáceres since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 2 in Spain in 2023, of 124.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Caminomorisco · 2025Pinofranqueado · 2026Torre de Don Miguel · 2022Montehermoso · 2026

Burnt area
10,843ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
8days
17 May 2023 – 24 May 2023
Municipalities hit
8
municipalities
Started on
17 May
2023
Heat detections
720
in a single hotspot: 1,270 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
9.2GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 May24 May
20 May 2023

How it evolved, day by day

18 May 2023 · 3,780 MW · 86 19 May 2023 · 23,877 MW · 625 20 May 2023 · 33 MW · 9
18 May 19 May 20 May

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

The weather it burned in

24°high
58km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 36.5 mm on 26 May.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7 ha in 2017.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.8% of the area of London (108 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. Pinofranqueado 1,783 inhabitants · fire reached the centre where it started
    5,995 ha reached on 18 May
    41 %
  2. Torrecilla de los Ángeles 642 inhabitants · 0.7 km from the centre
    1,693 ha reached on 19 May
    39 %
  3. Hernán-Pérez 401 inhabitants · 1.9 km from the centre
    1,115 ha reached on 19 May
    31 %
  4. Descargamaría 105 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the centre
    959 ha reached on 19 May
    18 %
  5. Santibáñez el Alto 394 inhabitants · 0.9 km from the centre
    792 ha reached on 19 May
    8.0 %
  6. Cadalso
    217 ha reached on 19 May
    30 %
  7. Robledillo de Gata 91 inhabitants · 1.4 km from the centre
    80 ha reached on 19 May
    2.6 %
  8. Caminomorisco 1,097 inhabitants · 2.8 km from the centre
    3 ha reached on 18 May
    0.0 %

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 scrub39 %
  • Coniferous forest32 %
  • Other natural land16 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland10 %
  • Agricultural areas2.4 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 37 %

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 17 May 2023 and burned 10,484 ha (the satellite measured 10,843 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 Hurdes y Gata · incendio de Pinofranqueado y Gata · La Muela - Mesegal
According to the sources, several fires that ended up merging:
  • La Muela (Pinofranqueado) 17 May 2023
  • Sauceda (Pinofranqueado) 17 May 2023
Official area reported: 10,863 ha (the satellite measured 10,843 ha)
Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 22 May 2023

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)
17 May 24.0 °C 13 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
18 May 22.2 °C 17 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 May 21.6 °C 19 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 May 20.0 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
21 May 20.2 °C 34 % 37 km/h 1.7 mm Low 8
22 May 21.7 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm Moderate 14
23 May 23.7 °C 39 % 45 km/h 2.8 mm Low 10
24 May 23.3 °C 42 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 12
25 May after 26.6 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
26 May after 19.2 °C 47 % 53 km/h 36.5 mm Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 May 2023
After · 31 May 2023

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 19 May 2023 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM1068 µg/m³
Optical depth1.12
15161718192021222324252627
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 · 720Every 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 Pinofranqueado fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 17 May 2023 and 24 May 2023: 8 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 17 May 2023 at 21:44 and declared extinguished on 5 June 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 10,843 hectares (108.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 8 municipalities: Pinofranqueado (5,995 ha, 41 %); Torrecilla de los Ángeles (1,693 ha, 39 %); Hernán-Pérez (1,115 ha, 31 %); Descargamaría (959 ha, 18 %); Santibáñez el Alto (792 ha, 8.0 %); Cadalso (217 ha, 30 %); Robledillo de Gata (80 ha, 2.6 %); Caminomorisco (3 ha, 0.0 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Pinofranqueado and reached its centre: the point marking it was inside the burnt area or less than 500 metres from it. That does not mean houses burned.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 24.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 58 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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 · 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. 720 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 10,484 official ha against 10,843 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.