A lorry fire on the Ruta de la Plata: what happened at the Puerto de los Castaños, and what a closure there does to a drive south
What set fire to the hillside beside the A-66?
The fire started on the afternoon of Saturday 1 August, when a lorry caught fire on the A-66 at the Puerto de los Castaños, the pass the motorway crosses between Cañaveral and Grimaldo in Cáceres province. Radio Interior and COPE put the first call at 13:38.
Flames went from the vehicle into the pine and scrub on the verge at around kilometre 505, on the northbound carriageway near the exit signed for Torrejoncillo, and then into the hills inside the municipality of Casas de Millán. The Junta de Extremadura raised the Infoex plan to level 1 at 14:40, citing the closeness of the flames to houses and to the motorway itself.
The night was the difficult part. Abel Bautista, vice-president of the Junta, said it had been "muy dura" for the crews, with stronger wind than forecast that did not drop until about four on Sunday morning. Once it eased, teams cut the head of the fire.
Separately, the Junta said three small fires were set deliberately at Casas de Millán at around five on Sunday morning, reportedly by someone trying to protect olive groves. Bautista said the regional government had reported them and that the Guardia Civil is investigating.
Was the A-66 shut, and is it running normally again?
COPE reported that the motorway was closed and later reopened. None of the accounts we found say how long the full closure lasted, or whether both carriageways were shut at once.
The railway went too. Trains between Monfragüe and Cáceres were suspended on safety grounds, with Renfe running road transport in their place on the Cáceres to Madrid line.
Bautista announced on the evening of 2 August, after a meeting of the regional emergency coordination centre, that every affected road was open again, that rail traffic had been reactivated and that residents had full freedom of movement. On the morning of 3 August the Junta reported the fire stabilised at 100 per cent and deactivated level 1 of both the Infoex plan and Infocaex, the regional civil protection plan for forest fires. The Infoex plan then declared the fire controlled at ten in the morning on 4 August, with no active fronts and the perimeter consolidated.
Controlled is not extinguished. Environment agents and a ground unit of forest firefighters stayed on the burnt ground to watch the perimeter for reactivation.
Did it reach Monfragüe, Serradilla or Torrejoncillo?
No, and the burnt ground that shows up near Serradilla and Torrejoncillo is one scar, not several fires. No separate fire was reported at either place over that weekend.
Serradilla matters because that is where the fire was heading. Saturday night's wind pushed the head towards the village and towards Monfragüe National Park beyond it, which was the outcome the Junta was most worried about. Crews stopped it well short of the park boundary in the early hours of Sunday. Monfragüe is normally open every day of the year, free and without booking, and no closure of the park was announced.
The town itself sits to the west of the burnt ground.
Two other Extremadura fires were running at the same time and were brought under control on 2 August: one at Tornavacas, in the Jerte valley in the north of Cáceres province, and one at Herrera del Duque in Badajoz province.
If your route south runs through Cáceres, what does a closure here actually cost you?
The A-66, the Autovía Ruta de la Plata, is the main north to south road down western Spain: Gijón to Seville, by way of Salamanca, Plasencia, Cáceres, Mérida and Zafra. For British drivers coming off the Santander or Bilbao ferries it is the natural spine of the journey, picked up at Salamanca via the A-67 and A-62 and followed all the way down. At Seville the A-49 carries on west towards Huelva and the Algarve.
The problem is that there is very little beside it. The old N-630 runs parallel over the same pass and through both Cañaveral and Grimaldo, and that is the standard local diversion. It is single carriageway and it goes through village streets, so a motorway's worth of traffic on it does not flow. Budget an hour or more for a short diversion, not ten minutes.
Anything bigger is not a local detour at all. Going round to the east means the A-5 through Madrid. Going round to the west means crossing into Portugal and running down the A-23 from Guarda through Castelo Branco to Torres Novas, then the A-1 and A-2 towards Lisbon and the Algarve. The A-23 carries no tolls as of 2026. Both are decisions to take at Salamanca or earlier, not at the tailback.
Two practical things. Check the DGT traffic service before you set off rather than relying on a satnav, which will happily route you into a queue. And if you are passing a roadside fire, keep moving: the hard shoulder is where the fire crews need to be.
Why does this stretch of motorway keep catching fire?
That one was put out without spreading. This one was not.
The difference is the state of the ground. José Antonio Bayón, the Junta's director general for forest fire prevention and extinction, said on 3 August that the vegetation had gone many weeks without meaningful rain and was "practically all available to burn". He said the Casas de Millán fire began with very high intensity from the outset, and warned that a drop in temperatures does not lower the risk much while the fuel stays that dry.
That is the useful thing to take from this event rather than the event itself. A single hot brake, tyre or exhaust on a motorway verge in Extremadura in August can become an evacuation by nightfall.
What is left to deal with now the fire has stopped moving?
The villages came through it. Casas de Millán and Grimaldo, a hamlet belonging to Cañaveral, were evacuated on the Saturday, around 800 people in total, and were allowed home on the Sunday under an instruction to stay indoors while crews worked. That was lifted at 20:45 on 2 August. No homes were reported destroyed. Power was restored overnight, and drinking water was trucked in for a time because the supply had been affected.
Expect roadworks rather than road closures from here. Smoke and haze near the burnt ground can also cut visibility on a hot afternoon.
Walkers should think twice about this section. The Vía de la Plata route of the Camino de Santiago passes through Cañaveral, and burnt hillside means no shade, loose footing and waymarking that may have gone. Access to recently burned forest is commonly restricted in Spain after a fire, with fines attached, so check with the town hall rather than assuming a path is open.
The least obvious hazard arrives later. The Puerto de los Castaños is a pass, with slopes rising directly above the carriageway. Burnt slopes hold nothing back, so the first heavy autumn rain can put mud and stones onto the road below. If you are driving this stretch after a storm this autumn, slow down through the cuttings.