What happens to people who start wildfires? From two years in prison for a barbecue that caused 11 deaths to 10 years for an arsonist

Penalties for those who start wildfires are severe. The Spanish Criminal Code provides for sentences of between 10 and 20 years in prison when a fire endangers people’s lives or physical safety. But only a small number of fires — whether set deliberately or caused by recklessness or accidents — reach trial, because they are difficult cases to prove. They usually occur across extensive forested areas, and even when a suspected perpetrator is identified, prosecutors must gather enough evidence to sustain the charges in court.

The crime scene is not straightforward, and even less so when a fire has been started deliberately. With temperatures that can easily exceed 500 degrees Celsius, any traces of DNA, epithelial cells or fingerprints on objects used to start the fire are destroyed, the Civil Guard says. Catching an arsonist in fraganti is also not easy. They may use candles, wicks, chemical agents and delayed-ignition systems that allow them to flee before smoke appears. Added to that is the fact that witnesses are hard to find in the forest and that firefighting efforts, which take priority, can destroy evidence.

That is why “there aren’t as many indictments” as for other environmental crimes, says Javier Rufino, coordinating environmental prosecutor. In 2025, 117 indictments were filed for fires and 86 convictions were handed down, with 39 acquittals. Those figures are in line with the average in recent years.

Where an increase is noticeable is in the number of people under investigation: 272 so far this year, almost 40% more than in the same period of 2025, according to data from the Prosecutor’s Office for the Environment. Of those, 51 people have been arrested ― only one more than last year ― and 11 were placed in pretrial detention this summer.

That number may seem small, but Rufino says it is significant because “in cases of fires caused by negligence it is rare that this precautionary measure is ordered.” He believes this criterion should be reviewed given “the high level of public awareness about the very serious consequences that actions such as doing agricultural work, lighting a barbecue, or burning stubble near a forested area in periods of high fire-risk can have.”

Identifying the person responsible and proving their involvement is not the only factor that determines the sentence. The penalty also depends on whether the fire was intentional or a result of negligence, its severity, the environmental cost and, above all, the danger posed to people. Other circumstances also factor in, such as delays that can occur in the judicial process and that are not attributable to the defendants. Here are some examples.

Negligence that leads to prison

This summer’s Almorox blaze in Toledo illustrates the sort of reckless conduct that ends in catastrophe. The fire began on July 22 and went on to spread to the Sierra Oeste of Madrid. The Civil Guard detained two men who were carrying out welding work on a property located on forest land at a time when such activities were prohibited because of the extreme fire-risk. After testifying before a judge, both were released on bond with precautionary measures: their passports were seized, they are forbidden to leave Spain, and they must appear in court every Monday.

Another act of negligence put a 27-year-old German man behind bars after he burned toilet paper after relieving himself in a makeshift latrine next to an abandoned house where he had been living for several months in the municipality of El Paso (La Palma). The fire got out of control, destroyed nearly 5,000 hectares and killed a forest ranger. The defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. The court found he had acted with gross negligence and that the fire endangered people’s lives and physical safety. The case was resolved in about nine months.

The barbecue that got out of control

Slow justice played a large role in how the terrible Riba de Saelices, in the province of Guadalajara, fire was resolved, in which 11 members of firefighting personnel were killed. The blaze started in July 2005 due to negligence while supervising a barbecue (in a permitted area) and destroyed about 13,000 hectares. The verdict arrived seven years later. One of the defendants was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay €10.6 million ($12.3 million) in damages, while two others were acquitted. The court applied mitigating factors for confession ― the defendant tried to extinguish the flames and alerted the emergency services ― and for undue delays due to the court’s backlog, which were unrelated to the defendants.

A similar case occurred with another devastating fire that broke out in July 2009 in Horta de Sant Joan, in the province of Tarragona. The blaze, started deliberately, burned 1,140 hectares, killed five firefighters and seriously injured another. The sentence took more than 12 years to arrive. The Prosecutor’s Office had sought 19 years in prison, but undue delays and plea agreements with the defense lawyers for the two arsonists reduced the sentences to four years for one and three years and nine months for the other. In that case, authorship was indisputable: files found on their cellphones showed them photographing themselves in front of columns of smoke.

The highest penalties: 10 and eight years

One of the heaviest sentences handed down for a wildfire in Spain came in 1996. The person responsible was sentenced to 10 years in prison for starting a fire that in 1994 ravaged 5,300 hectares in Los Serranos in the province of Valencia. The extent of the blaze and the ecological importance of the destroyed area led the court to impose an exemplary sentence.

Almost 30 years later, in November 2025, another of the longest sentences for this crime was handed down: eight years in prison for the author of an arson attack in 2023 on Monte Naranco, in the province of Oviedo, which forced the evacuation of numerous residents and killed animals and damaged homes and facilities. In that case, it was proven that the fire endangered the lives and physical safety of residents. The Prosecutor’s Office had initially sought 13 years in prison, but the 47-year-old defendant admitted the facts and the court allowed the mitigating circumstance of drug addiction. The sentence arrived barely a year and a half after the fire.

Miguel Ángel Soto, Greenpeace’s forest campaign spokesman, has been involved throughout the intensification of prosecutions for these crimes. “It is clear that great progress has been made in preventive work with the amendment of the Criminal Code and from the environmental prosecutors’ offices, and the effect is evident,” he says. But at the same time he stresses that coercive measures alone are not enough. “We have two main problems: landscape change and rising temperatures due to climate change, which means that even if there are fewer fires they are more devastating.” The tools to fight this “are there,” he adds — now administrations and social actors must “get moving.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition