Spain reaches July 26 with an even more serious emergency. The country leads the burned area from wildfires in the European Union during 2026 and faces large fires in Madrid, Ávila, Toledo, and Castellón, where the fire in the Vall d’Uixó has been declared beyond extinguishing capacity and has forced the evacuation of about 15,000 people.
According to records from the European Copernicus program, the fires are already close to 120,000 hectares of land burned by fire in Spain since the beginning of the year, after the official balance counted 61,163 hectares up to July 12. The figure has rapidly increased due to the large fires in recent weeks, favored by extreme temperatures, wind, and a very high or extreme risk in wide areas of the country.
Map of active fires in Spain today
Source: EPDATA / Europa Press, with satellite data from FIRMS-NASA.
Why are there more and more fires in summer?
Experts agree that the increase in large wildfires is due to a combination of climatic, environmental, and human factors. The main one is the increase in temperatures associated with climate change, which is extending the fire season and favoring more intense heat waves, prolonged droughts, and increasingly dry and combustible vegetation.
In addition, there is the accumulation of biomass in the mountains. The abandonment of many rural areas and the reduction of traditional activities, such as grazing or forest exploitation, have led to forests and scrub accumulating a large amount of fuel. When a fire starts, the flames find it easier to spread and reach a much greater intensity.
Although weather conditions are decisive, most fires in Spain still have a human origin, whether due to negligence - such as agricultural burns, work with machinery, or poorly extinguished cigarette butts - or intentional actions. This is compounded by the growth of urbanizations and homes near forested land, which increases both the risk of ignition and the complexity of extinguishing efforts.
As a consequence of all these factors, specialists warn that the so-called large wildfires are becoming increasingly frequent, capable of exceeding 500 hectares and behaving in an extreme manner. In the most severe episodes, the fire can generate its own atmospheric dynamics, complicating the work of emergency teams and sometimes forcing the prioritization of the protection of the population over extinction tasks.