[NASA] Destructive Fires Char Western Europe

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3. Destructive Fires Char Western…

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Charred landscapes surround reservoirs in central Spain in an image captured by the

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(Operational Land Imager) on

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on July 29, 2026. The

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combines observations at visible, near-infrared, and shortwave-infrared wavelengths (

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), making it easier to distinguish brown burned vegetation from green unburned vegetation.

NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

Wildland fires occur across Europe every summer, but those that erupted in Spain and France in July 2026 were among the largest and most disruptive the two countries have faced in decades. Some of the most consequential fires emerged in southwestern France’s Gironde Department and Spain’s Ávila and Madrid provinces in mid-July, where blazes forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate and destroyed hundreds of homes.

Government officials in Spain say that a fire in Ávila, after charring around

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(124,000 acres), is

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on record, surpassing

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that burned in Larouco, Quiroga, and Oencia in 2025. NASA satellites first observed signs of the Ávila fire burning near Burgohondo on

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and

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. By July 24, it

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with fires in neighboring provinces, pushing the total area burned to 77,000 hectares, an area about the size of New York City.

The image above, captured by

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, shows charred landscapes around Burgohondo on July 29, 2026. In the

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image, unburned vegetation appears light green, and burned areas appear brown. The two reservoirs in the center of the image were heavily affected. Flames tore through homes, restaurants, campgrounds, marinas, and other infrastructure surrounding the reservoirs, according to

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.

A similar crisis unfolded in southwestern France,

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. One of the largest fires to burn in France

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charred more than

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, prompting large-scale evacuations and devastating the village of

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. As of late July, fires had burned more than 90,000 hectares across France, more than any other season in decades, according to data from the

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.

Environmental conditions months before the fires ignited made the landscape in both Spain and France particularly susceptible to burning, according to

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conducted by researchers with The State of Wildfires Project. Unusually wet winter weather enhanced vegetation growth in grasslands, shrublands, and forest understories, and then a series of sweltering heat waves and a ******* of drought parched the vegetation and primed it to burn. Several days of strong winds reaching

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per hour at times served as the final trigger, the researchers found, fanning flames and encouraging rapid spread.

On July 25, conditions at fires in southwestern France grew so intense that French firefighters

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the formation of a

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—a towering type of “fire cloud” that draws convective energy from the heat of the fires. An

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of atmospheric scientists and fire experts who track the unusual clouds has

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the occasional formation of the clouds in Spain and Portugal in

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, but members of the group note that this is the first report of a fire in France producing one.

Thousands of firefighters and military personnel have battled fires in both countries. Crews have used aircraft to attack the fires with water and flame retardant, while teams on the ground have constructed firebreaks using tools ranging from bulldozers to hand tools. Firefighters gained the advantage by late July, allowing authorities to start

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. However, forecasters are

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that the risk of fire in the coming days remains high due to the persistence of hot, dry conditions.

Government satellite data are part of a global system of observations used to track fire behavior and analyze emerging trends. Among the real-time wildfire monitoring tools that NASA makes available are

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(Fire Information for Resource Management System) and the

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browser.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the 

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. Story by Adam Voiland.

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July 29, 2026

JPEG (6.09 MB)

References & Resources

• AP (2026, July 30)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• The Conversation (2026, July 29)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• Drought.gov (2026, July 22)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• EFE (2026, July 25)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• EFE (2026, July 26)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• European Commission (2026, July 30)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• European Commission (2026, July 30)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• France24 (2026, July 26)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• NASA Earthdata,
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• The New York Times (2026, July 28)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• Peterson, D., et al. (2025)
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  . Climate and Atmospheric Science, 8, 325.
• Reuters (2026, July 27)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• RTVE (2026, July 27)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• State of Wildfires Project (2026, July)
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  . Accessed July 30, 2026.
• Time (2026, July 28)
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  .Accessed July 30, 2026.

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