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Tàrbena fire, April 2024 Tàrbena, Parcent, Alcalalí

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2024, 12:44 UTC

The fire started on 14 April 2024 in Tàrbena, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 673 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Alacant / Alicante since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 15 in Spain in 2024, of 82.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Callosa d'en Sarrià · 2016la Vall d'Ebo · 2022Jávea/Xàbia · 2016Vall de Gallinera · 2020

Burnt area
673ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
14 Apr 2024 – 15 Apr 2024
Municipalities hit
4
municipalities
Started on
14 Apr
2024
Heat detections
36
in a single hotspot: 216 MW
Danger at start
15
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
564MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Apr15 Apr
15 Apr 2024

How it evolved, day by day

14 Apr 2024 · 787 MW · 20 15 Apr 2024 · 340 MW · 16
14 Apr 15 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

22°high
30km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 22 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.4% of the area of London (6.7 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. Tàrbena 662 inhabitants · 2.0 km from the centre where it started
    649 ha reached on 14 Apr
    20 %
  2. Parcent 1,037 inhabitants · 2.2 km from the centre
    13 ha reached on 14 Apr
    1.1 %
  3. Alcalalí
    7 ha
    0.5 %
  4. Xaló 1,428 inhabitants · 2.9 km from the centre
    4 ha
    0.1 %

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 scrub49 %
  • Other natural land28 %
  • Agricultural areas12 %
  • Scrub and transitional woodland6.5 %
  • Coniferous forest4.8 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 40 %

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.

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)
14 Apr 21.8 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
15 Apr 22.5 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
16 Apr after 18.5 °C 53 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
17 Apr after 16.4 °C 51 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
18 Apr after 17.0 °C 66 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Low 11
19 Apr after 15.8 °C 43 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
20 Apr after 17.0 °C 43 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
21 Apr after 16.8 °C 57 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
22 Apr after 15.0 °C 65 % 48 km/h 3.8 mm Very low 2

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Apr 2024
After · 22 Apr 2024

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 17 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak31 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1051 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
12131415161718
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 · 36Every 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 Tàrbena fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 14 April 2024 and 15 April 2024: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 673 hectares (6.7 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Tàrbena (649 ha, 20 %); Parcent (13 ha, 1.1 %); Alcalalí (7 ha, 0.5 %); Xaló (4 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The fire started in Tàrbena and came within 2.0 km of its centre. 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 22.5 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
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. 36 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • 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.