Cristina Santín Nuño

A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters estimates that babies born in Spain in 2025 will experience 7.3 more years of extreme weather conditions conducive to wildfires. The exposure for their grandparents, born in 1950, will be half that figure: 3.7 additional years. According to the authors, the vast majority of this increase is due to climate change rather than rising life expectancy. Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, in line with the Paris Agreement, would reduce Spanish young people’s lifetime exposure to these conditions by more than a year, compared with current policies.

The fire in Ávila, which merged with the one in the south-western mountains of Madrid last Saturday and spread to the province of Toledo, remains unstabilised, although it is under control in some areas. Wind gusts of up to 30 km/h will complicate fire-fighting efforts on Monday, according to the Madrid 112 Safety and Emergency Agency. The fire in Ávila is now the largest in Spain’s recent history. Meanwhile, the fire that broke out on Saturday in La Vall d’Uixó (Castellón), which has spread into the Sierra de Espadán Natural Park, has not yet been stabilised either. In total, around 100,000 people have been evacuated or are under lockdown across all the fire fronts.

Data from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) show that, as of 22 July, 119,458 hectares have been burnt in Spain. The average number of hectares burnt from 2006 to 2025 up to this date stands at 35,736 hectares. The fire in the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, which has scorched more than 30,000 hectares and is still active, together with numerous fire fronts in other provinces and the fire in Los Gallardos (Almería), in which 13 people died, have caused the total area burnt to soar.

Several areas in the region of El Bierzo in León and the province of Zamora have seen numerous forest fires in recent hours, forcing more than a thousand people from different municipalities to evacuate. One person has died. The flames have affected the Las Médulas natural area, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Another fire in Tarifa (Cádiz) has forced the evacuation of hundreds of people, and also in Tres Cantos (Madrid), where one person died. In addition, there are active outbreaks in several areas of Galicia. The government declares a pre-emergency phase.

The frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires appear to have doubled in the last 20 years. Moreover, the six most extreme years for these events have occurred since 2017, according to a paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution in which the authors used satellite data from 2003 to 2023. 

Coinciding with the heat wave, numerous wildfires have started and spread in the Iberian Peninsula, with two fatalities in the province of Zamora.