Tarifa fire, September 2026 Spain
Satellites first detected fire on 15 September 2026 in Tarifa, Spain. It was active for 1 day, with an area with fire of about 112 hectares estimated from satellite heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
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Copernicus has not yet published the burnt perimeter, which takes a few days to measure on satellite imagery. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). When the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
- Area with fire
- ≈ 112ha
- rebuilt from hotspots, no official perimeter yet
- Duration
- 1day
- 15 Sept 2026 – 15 Sept 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 0
- municipalities
- Started on
- 15 Sept
- 2026
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sept | 34.0 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 16 Sept after | 24.9 °C | 52 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Sept after | 25.9 °C | 49 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 18 Sept after | 27.7 °C | 52 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 19 Sept after | 26.6 °C | 62 % | 87 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 20 Sept after | 27.0 °C | 55 % | 93 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 17 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 12 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tarifa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite, it burned from 15 September 2026 to 15 September 2026 (1 day between the first and the last detection). There is no perimeter yet to date it.
- How much area did it burn?
- There is no official perimeter yet. Heat detections rebuild about 112 hectares with fire (1.1 km²); Copernicus will publish the measured figure within days.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.
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
- No perimeter yet: the area (≈ 112 ha) is estimated by counting VIIRS pixels with fire, about 14 ha each.
- Dates of the first and last VIIRS detection of the cluster. No Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- 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.