Tobarra fire, July 2021 Tobarra
The fire started on 24 July 2021 in Tobarra, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 562 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 24 July 2021 at 11:46 and declared extinguished on 28 July 2021.
It is the 4th largest in Albacete since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 18 in Spain in 2021, of 122.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 562ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 2days
- 24 Jul 2021 – 25 Jul 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 24 Jul
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 37
- in a single hotspot: 138 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 282MW
- 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 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 26 Jul.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
564 ha reached on 24 Jul1.7 %
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 scrub56 %
- Coniferous forest40 %
- Agricultural areas3.9 %
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
Official record
According to EGIF (MITECO), this fire started on 24 July 2021 and burned 557 ha (the satellite measured 562 ha).
- Tobarra Casa Gurugú 24 July 2021 · 11:46 557 ha · extinguished on 28 July 2021 · cause: arson
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jul | 36.6 °C | 15 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 25 Jul | 34.3 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 26 Jul after | 27.2 °C | 38 % | 41 km/h | 4.2 mm | Low 7 |
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 24 July 2021 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 15: 1.0 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 · 37Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tobarra fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 24 July 2021 and 25 July 2021: 2 days between the first and last image with fire. According to EGIF (MITECO), it was detected on 24 July 2021 at 11:46 and declared extinguished on 28 July 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 562 hectares (5.6 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tobarra (564 ha, 1.7 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Tobarra and came within 5.3 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 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
- 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 37 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- Compared with EGIF (MITECO): 557 official ha against 562 ha of perimeter; they agree within 25%.
- 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.