The fire 100 km north of Madrid has already ravaged 26,000 hectares, leading to the evacuation of 1,200 people

Four days after it was triggered, it still has not weakened. The fire which broke out on July 16 about a hundred kilometers north of Madrid has now ravaged 26,000 hectares, leading to the evacuation of 1,200 people, the fire extinguishing and prevention services on X announced on Monday July 20.

The forest fire which started from the village of La Mierla, in the Guadalajara area, in the Castile-La Mancha region, in central Spain, has burned a very large area in recent hours, particularly in the Sierra Norte Natural Park. This fire concerns the authorities, on the eve of a new heat wave in the country, favoring devastating fires. There were no casualties, but the public authorities ordered the evacuation of 28 hamlets scattered in the area.

“Of course, the amount of forest and agricultural land that is burning is very serious, but what is really important for us is to protect human lives”explained Monday morning to the press, the regional president of Castile-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page.

“The ultimate characteristic of this fire, in terms of complexity”he continued, is that it takes place in “deserted Spain, empty of population, the Spain of abandoned territories”.

“These are huge areas dotted with microvillages, very small hamlets of population. We have nearly 30 hamlets inside the fire zone, surrounded by fire; imagine the complexity of preventing the fire from entering the houses at all costs, to prevent them from burning”he developed.

More than 40°C expected over a large part of the country

“Yesterday, just as Spain was once again crowned world champion, at the time it was taking place, not only were hundreds of people fighting the fire without being able to follow the match, but we had to order five new evacuations. This is probably the alert, the most complex deployment, while all of Spain is vibrating for something else”, he said again.

The development of this fire is all the more worrying as Spain is preparing to experience its third heat wave from Tuesday, with temperatures expected to exceed 40°C in a large part of the country. In 2025, in Spain, more than 393,000 hectares were devoured by flames, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.