The fire which broke out on Wednesday near Zaragoza, in Aragon, in the north-east of Spain, has already reduced more than 12,000 hectares to smoke and presents “a very high risk of spread” due to the wind, regional authorities warned on Friday.
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“The night was very complex, very difficult. At present, we estimate that the burned area exceeds 12,000 hectares,” Roberto Bermúdez de Castro, responsible for security issues in the regional government of Aragon, told the media.
A wildfire in northern Spain has destroyed at least 11,000 acres and forced the evacuation of hundreds of residents, as emergency teams battle the blaze.
Spain is currently facing deadly wildfires across the country, caused by a persistent heatwave. pic.twitter.com/ntgPcM9Lnf
— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) July 17, 2026
The fire, which caused no casualties, broke out on Wednesday in the town of Orès, a sparsely populated area of Aragon where five villages had to be evacuated: despite the intense mobilization of firefighters during the night from Thursday to Friday, “the fire remained very active”, the regional government said in a press release.
More than 450 firefighters, supported by some 300 army reinforcements and around thirty air assets, continued to fight the flames on Friday morning.
Screenshot – CNN
“The risk of spread remains very high” because of the change in wind direction, and the priority is to “continue to guarantee the protection of all inhabited hamlets,” said Mr. Bermúdez de Castro.
Spain has just experienced one of the deadliest fires in its recent history, a forest fire which broke out in Andalusia (south) on July 9, killing 13 people and ravaging 7,000 hectares.
Screenshot – CNN
On the front line of global warming, the country has experienced increasingly long and frequent heat waves in recent years, with temperatures well above 40°C, creating conditions favorable to devastating fires.
In 2025, more than 393,000 hectares were ravaged by flames, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), the worst toll in recent Spanish history.
More than 72,488 hectares have been reduced to ashes since the start of the year in the country.
Last year, “a third of the total area burned in Europe” was in Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez recalled when he visited the scene of the disaster in Andalusia, insisting on the fact that “the effects of the climate emergency are getting worse” and warning of the “complicated summer” to come.
