Large fires in August mean 2025 has been a record year for wildfires in Spain

Spain is having its largest wildfire year in well over a decade.

The Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS) has published weekly data on the area burned by wildfires since 2012. At the beginning of August, Spain was on track for a relatively low year. Its running total for 2025 was below the average and far below former records.

But just two weeks later, it had overtaken all of these previous years. You can see this in the chart, which shows the cumulative wildfire burn across each year. Large outbreaks in mid-August meant the last record, set in 2022, was rapidly surpassed.

This global dataset from GWIS only dates back to 2012, so it is a relatively short record. However, the European Forest Fire Information System, based on data starting in 2006, also found that this year’s fires were the highest in two decades in Spain.

Portugal has also seen extremely large fires this year.