LOCAL authorities in Spain have reminded both residents and tourists alike against holding barbecues while out in the country’s national parks and rural areas during wildfire season.
The warning comes after rangers caught a family party using a gas stove to cook a large meal in a Catalan national park during Spain’s wildfire season.
Citations were issued against the family at Sallente reservoir, in the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park, Catalonia’s only national park, high in the Pyrenees mountains of Lleida province.
Local Rural Agents (Agents Rurals), the region’s environmental protection force, point out that the gas stove broke a seasonal ban on any open flame or unauthorised cooking device in the park.
Two more citations were issued on the same patrol for pitching illegal campsites nearby.
It comes as Andalucia introduces a tough new law to allow fines of up to €1 million for the most serious wildfire offences.
The clampdown follows the positive news that this year’s fires have burned less land nationally than at the same point in 2025.
READ MORE: Nearly 100 firefighters work overnight to stabilise wildfire near Nerja on the Costa del Sol
Nonetheless, Spain still accounts for nearly half of everything destroyed by wildfire across the entire European Union so far in 2026 — more than any other member state — with around 2,954 sq km lost since January 1, according to the EU’s Copernicus monitoring service.
Andalucia, one of the regions worst hit by wildfires this summer, has responded with the toughest penalties in the country under a new Forest Law, which took effect in April and replaced rules that were more than 25 years old.
Under the new rules, minor offences can bring fines of up to €1,000, while the most serious cases – including fires caused by gross negligence – can reach €1 million, with authorities also able to seize machinery and vehicles and demand the land be restored at the offender’s expense.
READ MORE: Barcelona wildfire contained after dozens of people were forced to evacuate homes in city outskirts
That €1 million ceiling is double the maximum fine that one British-focused travel and health insurer recently warned its customers about.
“The wildfire season this year has been brutal and our thoughts are with all of those who have been affected by them,” said Caroline Lips of Staysure Expat.
Lips said Andalucia already bans open-air fires and barbecues in and around forested land every year between June 1 and October 15, when the region’s fire risk is at its highest, and warned that even throwing a lit cigarette from a car window can bring a €500 fine and six points on a Spanish driving licence.
A discarded cigarette that causes a fire can also lead to criminal charges and, in the most serious cases, prison, Lips said.
Spain’s Criminal Code already treats a wildfire caused by serious carelessness – a legal category that specifically includes badly controlled barbecues, sparks from farm machinery and stubble burning – as a criminal rather than a civil matter, carrying a prison sentence of five to ten years.
One fire that took hold near Girona in June was quite literally sparked by a municipal worker operating an angle grinder. He is now facing criminal liability.
Sentences rise to between ten and twenty years if the fire endangers lives, while a deliberate blaze can carry a sentence of one to six years even where nobody is hurt.
Anyone planning a barbecue, campfire or outdoor cooking session in Spain this summer should check local rules before lighting anything, since bans vary from region to region and can change at short notice once a high fire-risk alert is declared.
Portable gas stoves, like the one found at Sallente, fall under the same fire-prevention bans as an open flame in Spain’s protected natural spaces, meaning there does not need to be a visible bonfire for a citation to follow.
The three citations issued at Sallente remain open, with the exact fines yet to be made public.
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