Tres Cantos fire, August 2025 Madrid, Tres Cantos, Alcobendas
The fire started on 12 August 2025 in Tres Cantos, Spain, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,037 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Madrid since 2016 (of 14 with a page). Number 31 in Spain in 2025, of 158.
The power measured by the satellite is low (3.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,037ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 1day
- 12 Aug 2025 – 12 Aug 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- municipalities
- Started on
- 12 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 11
- in a single hotspot: 4 MW
- Danger at start
- 45
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 26MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
12 Aug 2025 · 26 MW · 11
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 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 167 ha in 2024.
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
-
Madrid 3,506,730 inhabitants · 15.4 km from the centre1,216 ha reached on 12 Aug2.0 %
-
636 ha17 %
-
120 ha reached on 12 Aug2.6 %
-
Colmenar Viejo 58,730 inhabitants · 5.8 km from the centre69 ha0.4 %
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
- Agricultural areas36 %
- Other natural land33 %
- Broadleaved forest31 %
- Artificial surfaces0.6 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 66 %
- LIC Cuenca del río Manzanares ES3110004
- ZEPA Soto de Viñuelas ES0000012
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 30 September 2026We checked this page against 4 sources published once the fire was out. This is what they add:
- Also known as
- Incendio forestal de Tres Cantos · Incendio de Soto de Viñuelas · Incendio de Madrid (Monte de El Pardo / Tres Cantos)
- Official area reported: 1,969 ha (the satellite measured 2,037 ha)
- Declared under control (not yet extinguished): 13 August 2025
Sources
- Última hora del incendio forestal en Tres Cantos — Ayuntamiento de Colmenar Viejo, 13 August 2025 · official source
- Madrid fue el municipio con más terreno arrasado por el incendio de Tres Cantos, con 1.172 hectáreas quemadas — Telemadrid, 21 August 2025
- El incendio de Tres Cantos afectó a 607 hectáreas de terreno — 360y5, 20 August 2025
- Wildfire near Madrid kills one as fires burn across Spain — Euronews, 12 August 2025
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Aug | 37.4 °C | 13 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Aug after | 33.4 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Aug after | 36.3 °C | 18 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Aug after | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Aug after | 38.3 °C | 9 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Aug after | 39.0 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Aug after | 35.1 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Aug after | 31.8 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Aug after | 27.4 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Aug after | 30.1 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
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 14 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 13 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)
Detections table · 11Every 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 Tres Cantos fire last?
- Copernicus dates it between 12 August 2025 and 12 August 2025: 1 day between the first and last image with fire.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,037 hectares (20.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Madrid (1,216 ha, 2.0 %); Tres Cantos (636 ha, 17 %); Alcobendas (120 ha, 2.6 %); Colmenar Viejo (69 ha, 0.4 %).
- Did the fire reach a town?
- The fire started in Tres Cantos and came within 1.1 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 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 11 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.