Pinofranqueado fire, August 2026 Pinofranqueado, Nuñomoral, Agallas
The fire started on 18 August 2026 in Pinofranqueado, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 4,004 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Cáceres since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 11 in Spain in 2026, of 196.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,004ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- ≈ 4days
- 18 Aug 2026 – 21 Aug 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- municipalities
- Started on
- 18 Aug
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 167
- in a single hotspot: 541 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.1GW
- detected power per day, on average
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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.9 mm on 24 Aug.
This area had burned before
0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5 ha in 2025.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
2,175 ha reached on 18 Aug15 %
-
Nuñomoral 1,196 inhabitants · 1.2 km from the centre1,812 ha reached on 19 Aug19 %
-
Agallas 122 inhabitants · 8.0 km from the centre9 ha0.2 %
-
Casares de las Hurdes 362 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre8 ha reached on 20 Aug0.4 %
-
Caminomorisco 1,097 inhabitants · 4.7 km from the centre5 ha reached on 19 Aug0.0 %
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
- Other natural land38 %
- Sclerophyllous scrub23 %
- Scrub and transitional woodland22 %
- Mixed forest11 %
- Coniferous forest5.0 %
- Agricultural areas0.8 %
- Broadleaved forest0.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 68 %
- LIC El Rebollar ES4150032
- ZEPA Hurdes ES0000355
- LIC Las Hurdes ES4320011
- LIC Río Esperaban ES4320069
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 2 October 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio de Las Hurdes · Incendio de Pinofranqueado-Caminomorisco
- Official area reported: 3,765 ha (the satellite measured 4,004 ha)
- Declared extinguished: 26 August 2026
Sources
- El Infoex da por extinguido el incendio de Pinofranqueado tras ocho días de lucha contra el fuego — La Portada de Extremadura, 26 August 2026
- Incendio de Pinofranqueado controlado: 3.765 hectáreas después, comienza otra batalla en Las Hurdes — Ecoticias, 23 August 2026
- El incendio de Las Hurdes queda estabilizado con más de 4.000 hectáreas afectadas — Digital Extremadura, 21 August 2026
- Estabilizado el incendio forestal en Las Hurdes (Cáceres) que ha arrasado 4.350 hectáreas — The Objective, 21 August 2026
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Aug | 33.0 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Aug | 29.2 °C | 29 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Aug | 23.9 °C | 38 % | 37 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Aug | 25.1 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 22 Aug after | 26.0 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 23 Aug after | 25.1 °C | 22 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 24 Aug after | 18.0 °C | 52 % | 65 km/h | 14.9 mm | Very low 4 |
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 22 August 2026 the air beside the fire reached 382 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 112: 7.5 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 · 167Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,694 haCaminomoriscoJuly 2025 · 3 days · 4 km away
- 10,843 haPinofranqueadoMay 2023 · 8 days · 15 km away
- 12,687 haLadrillarJuly 2022 · 8 days · 17 km away
- 1,031 haTorre de Don MiguelAugust 2022 · 2 days · 29 km away
- 465 haMontehermosoAugust 2026 · 2 days · 30 km away
- 931 haGuijo de CoriaJune 2017 · 1 day · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pinofranqueado fire last?
- The official perimeter only gives the start date (18 August 2026). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 21 August 2026 (4 days from 18 August 2026), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 4,004 hectares (40.0 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Pinofranqueado (2,175 ha, 15 %); Nuñomoral (1,812 ha, 19 %); Agallas (9 ha, 0.2 %); Casares de las Hurdes (8 ha, 0.4 %); Caminomorisco (5 ha, 0.0 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire came within 1.2 km of the centre of Nuñomoral, 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 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 167 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Checked against news and agencies: 4 confirmed sources.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.