Spain · major fire event · burning since 29 July

The Veguellina fire: El Bierzo, the Camino and the A-6

34distinct satellite heat locations near Vega de Espinareda

What happened

The burnt ground flagged in El Bierzo was the Veguellina fire, named after a hamlet in Villafranca del Bierzo and reportedly started on the afternoon of 29 July when a utility pole fell and its cable ignited the ground. It reached the second of the Junta's severity levels the same day and burned north west into Vega de Espinareda, which is why the satellite footprint sits there rather than at the village the fire is named after. The Junta lowered it to level zero on the morning of 3 August and declared it out at 17:50 on 9 August, twelve days after it started. Other fires are still logged in the comarca.

What it means if you're travelling

More than two hundred people were evacuated from Moreda, San Martín de Moreda, Valle de Finolledo and San Pedro de Olleros to the pavilion at Cacabelos, and were home by 1 August. For walkers the useful fact is that the burn sits north of the Camino Francés, so the route itself is intact, but a separate fire at San Tirso closed the A-6 towards A Coruña at Vega de Valcarce on 31 July, which is directly on the Villafranca to O Cebreiro stage. Las Médulas was not touched this year: the widely circulated photographs of it burning are from 2025.

The Veguellina fire: El Bierzo's late-July cluster, and what it means for the Camino and the A-6

What burned in El Bierzo at the end of July?

The burnt ground picked up by satellite in the hills of El Bierzo belongs to a real and well documented incident. The Junta de Castilla y León calls it the Veguellina fire, after a hamlet in the municipality of Villafranca del Bierzo, and it was the largest of a cluster that hit the comarca in the last days of July.

It started on the afternoon of Wednesday 29 July. The Junta's working explanation, reported consistently by local outlets including Infobierzo and El Bierzo Digital, is that a utility pole came down and its cable ignited the ground beneath. Power was cut to a string of villages for the best part of two days while crews worked. The fire was raised to level 2 on the Índice de Gravedad Potencial, the regional scale, within hours, which is the level the Junta uses when a fire threatens people or property rather than just woodland.

From Veguellina the fire pushed north and west out of Villafranca's territory and into the municipality of Vega de Espinareda, in the foothills below the Ancares Leoneses. That is why the confirmed burnt area maps around Vega de Espinareda rather than around the village the fire is named after. One further satellite attribution places burnt ground near Villadecanes, in the Toral de los Vados area south of the motorway, and that one is not matched by any fire the Junta or the local press reported. Readers should not treat it as a second incident until an official source names one.

Veguellina was not alone. On the same evening a separate fire at Valdelaloba, in the municipality of Toreno, was also raised to level 2. A smaller fire at Moreda, in Vega de Espinareda, had already been burning since the early hours. In the days immediately before, the comarca had dealt with a fire at Villaverde de los Cestos in the municipality of Castropodame, which the Junta is investigating as sparks from electrical tower work, and one at Quintela in Balboa, which it has treated as deliberately set. Javier Salgado, the mayor of Vega de Espinareda, said publicly that several of the fires showed signs of having been lit and asked residents to report anything suspicious.

Which villages were evacuated, and are people back home?

Everyone who was moved out has been allowed back. That happened in stages over four days, and the sequence is worth knowing because it is the clearest measure of how the fire actually behaved.

On the evening of 29 July around twenty people from Prado de la Somoza, in Villafranca del Bierzo, were taken to the sports hall in Villafranca as a precaution. Residents of Valdelaloba and Pradilla, in Toreno, were moved to the municipal pavilion there because of the separate fire on their side of the comarca. They went home the following day once that fire eased.

The larger movement came on 30 July, as the Veguellina fire ran north. Moreda, San Martín de Moreda, Valle de Finolledo and San Pedro de Olleros were cleared, and more than two hundred people in total were housed in the municipal pavilion at Cacabelos. San Martín de Moreda and Valle de Finolledo returned the same day after crews held the eastern flank. Moreda, San Pedro de Olleros and Prado de la Somoza stayed out until Saturday 1 August, when the Junta said the perimeter was secured and lowered the fire to level 1.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported in connection with the El Bierzo fires. The Unidad Militar de Emergencias reinforced the operation on 30 July alongside regional crews and the Guardia Civil.

No village in the comarca has been evacuated since. The fires that started in Vega de Valcarce on 7 August and at Quintela on 9 August were both logged at level 0, the level the Junta uses when a fire is not a threat to people or property outside the woodland, and neither has forced anyone from home.

Does this affect the Camino Francés between Villafranca and O Cebreiro?

The walking route itself came through intact, but one of the fires sat directly on it for a day.

The Camino Francés reaches Villafranca del Bierzo and then follows the Valcarce valley south-west and uphill to O Cebreiro and the Galician border. On 30 July a fire started at San Tirso, in the municipality of Vega de Valcarce, which is squarely in that valley. It was raised to level 1 the next day before being brought down and declared out over the weekend. The Veguellina fire burnt in the opposite direction, in the hills between Villafranca del Bierzo and Vega de Espinareda, which is north of the Camino and not on any stage of it.

The Valcarce valley has kept catching fire since. A fresh one started in the hills at Laballos, near the Las Lamas viaduct, on the afternoon of 7 August, and was still logged at level 0 three days later. Nothing on the waymarked route has been reported closed because of it.

So the practical position for walkers is that the route is passable and the villages on it are inhabited and open. What can still catch you out is smoke. On 29 July the Junta's air quality network recorded raised ozone across two dozen municipalities in the area, and its standing advice in those episodes is that older people, children and anyone with a respiratory condition should limit hard exercise outdoors. Walking a stage with a pack in August heat is hard exercise. If you are asthmatic, check air quality before you set off rather than at the halfway point, and be willing to take a bus for a stage.

Pilgrims also need to take the fire ban seriously. The Junta declared its fifth regional fire risk alert of the season on 10 August, covering 11, 12 and 13 August, and it bans fires and barbecues in open ground including designated recreation areas and campsites. Wild camping and a stove in the woods are the wrong instinct in these conditions, and the restrictions carry penalties.

Is the A-6 to Galicia open, and what happened to it?

The A-6 is the main motorway from Ponferrada up through the Valcarce valley into Lugo province and on to Galicia, and it was closed for part of one afternoon.

On 31 July the San Tirso fire forced the closure of the A Coruña-bound carriageway between kilometre 422 and kilometre 428, at Vega de Valcarce. Lorries were sent off at kilometre 400 onto the N-120. Cars were sent off at kilometre 419 onto the N-VI, the old road that shadows the motorway up the same valley. Traffic was running again through a contraflow between those two points from 18:15 the same day.

That remains the only closure of the motorway reported for fire this summer. The fire that started beside the A-6 at the Las Lamas viaduct on 7 August burned within sight of the carriageway for days without one. El Bierzo Digital reported no disruption to traffic on the day it started, and COPE reported none on 10 August.

It is that the Valcarce valley is a narrow corridor with the motorway, the N-VI and the Camino all stacked in it, and a fire on either side shuts the lot at once. Build slack into a drive with a ferry or flight at the end of it, and check the Dirección General de Tráfico before committing to that stretch rather than trusting a satnav that will not know about a closure.

Can you still visit Las Médulas and Ponferrada?

Yes, and this is where the year matters more than anywhere else on the page.

Las Médulas, the UNESCO listed Roman gold workings south-west of Ponferrada, was not touched by the 2026 fires. It was devastated in August 2025, when fire ran through around seventy per cent of the site and destroyed chestnut woods that were centuries old. Search results still surface that coverage as though it were current. It is not.

The site is open and the recovery is visible but partial. Reconstruction of the Aula Arqueológica is well advanced under a post-disaster recovery plan. Vegetation is coming back on the burnt ground, though the archaeologist Javier Sánchez-Palencia, who has worked on the site for decades, has said a substantial share of the chestnut groves is unlikely to recover in the medium term. Going is a reasonable thing to do; expecting the landscape in the older photographs is not.

One detail for walkers: the first stages of the Camino de Invierno, which leaves the Camino Francés at Ponferrada and goes through Las Médulas towards Galicia, run across ground burnt in 2025. Sánchez-Palencia has argued for spreading visitors to quieter viewpoints such as Pedrices to reduce erosion on the recovering slopes. Ponferrada itself, including the Templar castle, was unaffected in both years and is operating normally.

What does the burnt ground mean for the rest of the summer?

The Junta lowered Veguellina to level 0 on the morning of Monday 3 August, after a Sunday with no reactivations. It then took another week to put out. The Junta declared the fire extinguished at 17:50 on Sunday 9 August, twelve days after it started, and that is the moment the emergency around Villafranca and Vega de Espinareda ended rather than the downgrade six days earlier. Other fires have started in the comarca since, which is the pattern to expect until the weather turns.

The aftermath will outlast the emergency in three ways that matter to a visitor. First, access. Burnt hillsides in Castilla y León are routinely closed to the public while they are made safe and surveyed, and the regional fire alerts that keep being declared through August restrict what you may do in woodland even where you can walk. Local footpaths above Vega de Espinareda and in the Ancares foothills are the ones to check, and the place to check is the ayuntamiento or the Junta rather than a walking app.

Second, accommodation. Rural guesthouses in small Bierzo villages that took evacuees, lost power or simply lost a week of bookings do not all reopen the day a fire is downgraded. If you have booked something in Vega de Espinareda, Toreno or the Burbia valley, ring the owner rather than assuming.

Third, and least obvious, water. A burnt slope sheds rather than absorbs, and the first heavy autumn rain over ground like this brings mud, ash and loose rock down onto the roads and tracks below it. That risk lasts into the autumn, long after the fire has gone from the news, and it is worth remembering on a minor road in the hills after a storm.

There is also a wider point that Bierzo residents have made loudly this summer. That is a matter for the region rather than for a visitor's itinerary, but it explains why several small fires in one week stretched the response as far as they did.

The live picture

Live NASA VIIRS + MODIS detections, refreshed daily. The situation moves: this map is current as of the timestamp in the banner above.

How this event has developed

16 August: Marco Morala, the mayor of Ponferrada, visits Manzanedo de Valdueza and asks for the origin of the flood to be established properly, saying the municipality has had two serious episodes and two lives lost. No source consulted links either the flood at Manzanedo de Valdueza or the one at Bouzas to ground burnt by this year's fires, and this page does not make that connection. No new fire in El Bierzo is reported this morning, no village is evacuated and no road in the comarca is reported closed. The regional fire risk alert lapsed after 14 August and no source consulted shows one in force today.
15 August: Storms rather than heat drive the day. The Igüeña fire at Los Montes de la Ermita regains strength in the early afternoon, and ground crews and aircraft work it again on ground Infobierzo describes as hard to reach, with the effort aimed at keeping the flames away from Igüeña and the villages around it. Infobierzo attributes it to lightning. No evacuation and no road closure is reported. The Junta declares Situación Operativa 1 for the whole of Castilla y León, the level it uses when fires can seriously damage woodland or when several fires at level 0 or level 1 are burning at once, with more than a dozen alight and most of them started by the storms. Two other fires start in the province the same afternoon, at Curueña in the municipality of Riello and at Vegas del Condado, both outside El Bierzo. In the evening a violent storm sends water, mud and rock off the hillside above Manzanedo de Valdueza, in the municipality of Ponferrada. The 1-1-2 centre of Castilla y León takes the first call at 19:38. Two women, aged 60 and 80, die in a cellar on the calle de la Iglesia and two babies are treated for minor injuries. An elderly man reported missing is found unhurt. At Bouzas, in the same valley, the river Meruelo bursts and pushes mud and stones through the village, shifting parked cars. Mirta Blanco, the alcaldesa pedánea of Bouzas, said it came through very quickly.
14 August: The Junta extends its fire risk alert by a day, to cover Friday 14 August across the whole of Castilla y León, with the same bans in place. It forecast maximum temperatures of 35 to 37 degrees, minimum humidity of between five and fifteen per cent and gusts to 40 kilometres an hour, and rated the danger index between extreme and very high. Just outside the comarca, in the Laciana valley, the fire at Caboalles de Abajo in the municipality of Villablino is stabilised overnight and lowered to level 0, and the people cleared from the San Juan and Las Trapiechas neighbourhoods the day before are allowed home. In El Bierzo itself a fire starts on the Friday afternoon in the woods at Los Montes de la Ermita, in the municipality of Igüeña, and is brought under control the same day. No source consulted gives a state for the Laballos or Quintela fires.
13 August: The regional fire risk alert is in its final day, with the danger index rated extreme again. No fire in El Bierzo is reported in the local press this morning. The state of the two fires that were logged at level 0 in the comarca on 10 August, at Laballos in Vega de Valcarce and at Quintela in Barjas, is not given by any source consulted: the Junta's Inforcyl live portal returned no records when fetched, and no El Bierzo outlet has published on either since.
12 August: Infobierzo reports a new forest fire at Valtuille de Arriba, in the municipality of Villafranca del Bierzo, notified at 12:08 and worked by environmental agents, water tenders, a helitransported crew and a helicopter. It was short lived, and both the burnt area and the cause were still under investigation when the report was written. No evacuation and no road closure is reported. AEMET has the whole province of León on a yellow warning for heat, with Ponferrada forecast to reach 38 degrees, the highest anywhere in the province.
11 August: The Junta's fire risk alert takes effect across the whole of Castilla y León and runs to 13 August. It bans lighting fires in open ground, recreation areas and campsites, bans barbecues outdoors, suspends burning permits already granted, and bans fireworks and spark-producing machinery in woodland and within four hundred metres of it. The Junta forecast maximum temperatures of 34 to 36 degrees, minimum humidity below ten per cent and gusts to 45 kilometres an hour, rating the danger index extreme on 11 and 13 August. No new fire in El Bierzo is reported, and no source consulted gives a state for the two fires logged in the comarca the day before.
10 August: Two fires are still logged in El Bierzo, both at level 0: the one beside the A-6 near the Las Lamas viaduct in Vega de Valcarce, and the one declared the previous afternoon at Quintela. COPE reports no disruption to traffic on the A-6. Nobody is reported out of their home. Veguellina, the fire this page is named after, is out. The Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Energía announces the fifth regional fire risk alert of the season, to run from the following day.
9 August: The Junta de Castilla y León declares the Veguellina fire extinguished at 17:50, twelve days after it started on 29 July. Earlier the same afternoon, at 16:03, a new fire is declared in the woods above Quintela, in the municipality of Barjas on the Lugo border, at level 0 and with its cause not disclosed. Some outlets placed this fire in the neighbouring municipality of Balboa, where a separate Quintela fire burned in late July. The Vega de Valcarce fire at Laballos is listed as controlled. No evacuation and no road closure is reported in the comarca.
8 August: The fire that started the previous afternoon in Vega de Valcarce is still burning in the hills above Laballos, near the Las Lamas viaduct, and elDiario reports ground crews, a bulldozer and helicopters working it. It stays at level 0 and its cause is undetermined and under investigation. No evacuation and no road closure is reported. Veguellina is still active at level 0.
7 August: The Veguellina fire is still active at level 0, a week and a half after it started, and is now one of only two fires still active anywhere in Castilla y León. The other is at Burgohondo in Ávila, at level 1. Aircraft have been stood down at Veguellina and a small ground team is consolidating the perimeter after the reactivation on its western flank on 3 August. In the late afternoon there are reports of a fire beside the A-6 at the Las Lamas viaduct, in the municipality of Vega de Valcarce, logged at 17:04 and at level 0, with no effect on A-6 traffic recorded.
3 August: The Junta de Castilla y León lowers the Veguellina fire to level 0, confirming it no longer poses a risk to the population or to property outside the woodland. Crews remain on the perimeter watching for flare-ups.
1 August: The Junta says the Veguellina perimeter is secured and lowers the fire from level 2 to level 1. Residents of Moreda, San Pedro de Olleros and Prado de la Somoza are allowed home, ending the evacuation.
31 July: The San Tirso fire is raised to level 1 and the A Coruña-bound carriageway of the A-6 is closed between kilometre 422 and kilometre 428 at Vega de Valcarce. Lorries are diverted at kilometre 400 onto the N-120 and cars at kilometre 419 onto the N-VI. Traffic runs again through a contraflow from 18:15. The Junta extends its regional fire risk alert over the weekend, banning fires and barbecues in woodland and open ground.
30 July: Veguellina runs north into Vega de Espinareda. Moreda, San Martín de Moreda, Valle de Finolledo and San Pedro de Olleros are cleared, with more than two hundred people housed at the municipal pavilion in Cacabelos. The Unidad Militar de Emergencias reinforces the operation. Valdelaloba and Pradilla residents return home. San Martín de Moreda and Valle de Finolledo return the same day. A new fire starts in the early afternoon at San Tirso, in Vega de Valcarce.
29 July: A fire breaks out in the early hours at Moreda, in Vega de Espinareda. The Veguellina fire starts in the afternoon in the municipality of Villafranca del Bierzo, reportedly after a utility pole fell and its cable ignited, and is raised to level 2. A separate fire at Valdelaloba, in Toreno, is raised to level 2 the same evening. Around twenty people leave Prado de la Somoza for the sports hall in Villafranca; Valdelaloba and Pradilla residents go to the pavilion in Toreno. The Junta's air quality network records raised ozone across two dozen municipalities.

What travellers are asking

Is the Veguellina fire out?

Yes. The Junta de Castilla y León declared it extinguished at 17:50 on Sunday 9 August, twelve days after it started on 29 July. It had been at level 0, the lowest on the regional scale, since 3 August, with one reactivation on its western flank on the evening of that day. Level 0 and extinguished are not the same thing, which is why the gap between the two dates is worth reading.

Are there still fires burning in El Bierzo?

The one to know about is at Los Montes de la Ermita, in the municipality of Igüeña. It started on the afternoon of Friday 14 August, was brought under control, then regained strength on the Saturday afternoon, and Infobierzo puts it down to lightning. Nobody has been moved out and no road has been closed because of it. Two older fires were still logged on 10 August, both at level 0: one in the hills at Laballos, in Vega de Valcarce, and one above Quintela, in the municipality of Barjas near the Lugo border. Neither the Junta's live portal nor any Bierzo outlet has published a state for either of them since, so we do not know whether they are still logged. A short-lived fire at Valtuille de Arriba, in Villafranca del Bierzo, was worked and put out on 12 August.

Is the Camino Francés open through El Bierzo?

Yes. The route through Villafranca del Bierzo, down the Valcarce valley and up to O Cebreiro is passable and the villages on it are open. The Veguellina fire burnt north of the Camino, in the hills towards Vega de Espinareda. The San Tirso fire at Vega de Valcarce, which was on the route, was declared out over the weekend of 1 and 2 August. The Laballos fire, in the same valley since 7 August, has not closed anything on the waymarked route. Smoke rather than flame is the realistic risk to a walker here, so check air quality before a long stage in hot weather.

Is the A-6 between Ponferrada and Galicia open?

Yes. The A Coruña-bound carriageway was closed between kilometre 422 and kilometre 428 at Vega de Valcarce on 31 July because of the San Tirso fire, with lorries diverted at kilometre 400 onto the N-120 and cars at kilometre 419 onto the N-VI. It was running again through a contraflow from 18:15 that day, and that is the only fire closure of the motorway reported this summer. The fire burning beside it at the Las Lamas viaduct since 7 August has not stopped traffic. Check the Dirección General de Tráfico before that stretch if you are driving to a ferry or flight.

Was Las Médulas affected?

Not in 2026. Las Médulas burnt in August 2025, when around seventy per cent of the UNESCO site was affected and much of the ancient chestnut woodland was lost. Search results about a fire at Las Médulas almost always refer to 2025, so check the date on anything you read.

Do I need to worry about the smoke?

Only if you are exercising hard outdoors or have a respiratory condition. On 29 July the Junta's air quality network logged raised ozone across two dozen municipalities in the area and advised older people, children and people with respiratory conditions to limit intense outdoor activity. Walking a Camino stage with a pack counts.

Can I have a barbecue or camp in the woods?

Check before you do. The Junta declared its fifth fire risk alert of the season on 10 August, for 11, 12 and 13 August, then extended it by a day to cover 14 August. It banned lighting fires in open ground including recreation areas and campsites set up for it, banned barbecues outdoors, suspended burning permits already granted, and banned fireworks and spark-producing machinery in woodland and within four hundred metres of it. No source consulted shows an alert in force since 14 August. Separately, on 15 August the Junta declared Situación Operativa 1 for the region, which is about how the emergency plan is staffed when several fires burn at once rather than about what the public may do. These alerts are declared and lifted at short notice through the summer, so read the current one rather than assuming either way.

I have booked a rural house near Vega de Espinareda. Should I cancel?

Not automatically, but ring the owner. Evacuated villages were all back home by 1 August, the fire was at level 0 by 3 August and out on 9 August. What lingers is practical: places that lost power for the best part of two days, took in neighbours or sit on a track that crews churned up may not be back to normal on the day the alert level drops. The owner will know, and a phone call is worth more than any map.

Official sources for this event

NASA FIRMS Europe 24h	firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov
112 Castilla y León	112.jcyl.es
DGT traffic	infocar.dgt.es/etraffic/