Wildfires
🔥 Wildfires in Spain
So far in 2026, Copernicus satellites have mapped 1,939 fires that have burnt 311,908 hectares, above the average for the past decade at this point in the year (119,016 ha). 50.2 % of the burnt area lies within protected sites of the Natura 2000 network. Latest fire recorded: 24 September 2026.
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EFFIS uses satellite imagery to map fires above a certain size (generally around 30 ha or more), so the number of fires is far lower than in MITECO's official statistics, which count every incipient fire. The burnt area, however, captures the vast majority of what has burnt.
Where fires have burnt this year
Each circle is a 2026 fire, placed at the centre of its perimeter and sized in proportion to the area burnt. The colour shows how much of the burnt area lies within the Natura 2000 network.
Active fires in the last 7 days
Hotspots detected on Spanish territory by NASA's VIIRS and MODIS satellites (FIRMS system). A large fire produces dozens of hotspots; the colour reflects the fire's radiative power (FRP, in megawatts).
1,295 hotspots with medium or high confidence between 22 September and 28 September 2026.
A hotspot is a satellite pixel (375 m for VIIRS, 1 km for MODIS) that is hotter than normal: besides wildfires, it includes agricultural burning and fixed industrial sources such as steelworks, refineries or gas flares. Low-confidence hotspots are omitted.
Area burnt, province by province
Provinces without colour had no fires mapped by EFFIS that year.
A quarter of a century of fires
What kind of land burns
EFFIS overlays each perimeter on the CORINE land cover map, which shows whether the burnt land was forest, scrub, grassland or cropland.
The largest fires of the past decade
Official sources
- EFFIS – European Forest Fire Information System (Copernicus, European Commission): burnt area perimeters mapped by satellite since 2000, with their area, the land cover affected (CORINE Land Cover) and the share within the Natura 2000 network. Figures for the current season are provisional and are revised by EFFIS.
- NASA FIRMS – Fire Information for Resource Management System: near-real-time hotspots from the VIIRS (Suomi NPP, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21) and MODIS sensors.
- Natura 2000 network (MITECO): the European network of protected sites (SACs and SPAs).
MITECO's official wildfire statistics also include incipient fires (under 1 ha) and are published with a longer delay, which is why their totals may differ from EFFIS's.
Data updated 7 minutes ago