Skip to content
worldfires
en
ES · Spain · →

Pujerra fire, June 2022 Benahavís, Pujerra, Júzcar

Out · last detection 11 Jun 2022, 13:20 UTC

The fire started on 8 June 2022 in Júzcar, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 5,042 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 5 municipalities. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 8 June 2022 at 15:06 and declared extinguished on 26 June 2022.

It is the 2th largest in Malaga since 2016 (of 16 with a page). Number 14 in Spain in 2022, of 194.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sierra Bermeja · 2021Jubrique · 2021Benahavís · 2026Estepona · 2019

Burnt area
5,042ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
4days
8 Jun 2022 – 11 Jun 2022
Municipalities hit
5
municipalities
Started on
8 Jun
2022
Heat detections
319
in a single hotspot: 313 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
2.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jun11 Jun
11 Jun 2022

How it evolved, day by day

9 Jun 2022 · 6,376 MW · 210 10 Jun 2022 · 442 MW · 74 11 Jun 2022 · 144 MW · 35
9 Jun 10 Jun 11 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
44km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 65 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (50 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. Benahavís 9,472 inhabitants · 3.4 km from the centre
    1,983 ha reached on 9 Jun
    14 %
  2. Pujerra 285 inhabitants · 1.8 km from the centre
    1,421 ha reached on 9 Jun
    58 %
  3. Júzcar 208 inhabitants · 3.6 km from the centre where it started
    1,375 ha reached on 9 Jun
    41 %
  4. Estepona 79,621 inhabitants · 7.7 km from the centre
    255 ha reached on 9 Jun
    1.8 %
  5. Faraján 285 inhabitants · 3.3 km from the centre
    17 ha reached on 11 Jun
    0.8 %

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

  • Coniferous forest53 %
  • Sclerophyllous scrub26 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland11 %
  • Mixed forest4.2 %
  • Other natural land2.8 %
  • Broadleaved forest1.7 %
  • Agricultural areas1.1 %

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 8 June 2022 and burned 4,751 ha (the satellite measured 5,042 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 3 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:

Also known as
Incendio de Pujerra · Incendio de Benahavís · Incendio de La Resinera
Official area reported: 4,860 ha (the satellite measured 5,042 ha)
Declared extinguished: 26 June 2022

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)
8 Jun 32.5 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jun 30.0 °C 38 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Jun 26.9 °C 39 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Jun 26.9 °C 36 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Jun after 26.9 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jun after 29.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Jun after 31.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jun after 31.8 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Jun after 29.9 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
17 Jun after 30.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jun after 29.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
19 Jun after 30.7 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Jun after 29.1 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Jun after 26.9 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jun 2022
After · 18 Jun 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 9 June 2022 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak24 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1030 µg/m³
67891011121314
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 · 319Every 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 Pujerra fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 8 June 2022 and 11 June 2022: 4 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 8 June 2022 at 15:06 and declared extinguished on 26 June 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 5,042 hectares (50.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Benahavís (1,983 ha, 14 %); Pujerra (1,421 ha, 58 %); Júzcar (1,375 ha, 41 %); Estepona (255 ha, 1.8 %); Faraján (17 ha, 0.8 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire came within 1.8 km of the centre of Pujerra, 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 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class 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. 319 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 4,751 official ha against 5,042 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
  • Checked against news and agencies: 3 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.