Spain has confirmed its deadliest year on record for heat-related deaths, with 5,232 people dying from high temperatures so far in 2026, according to the country's official mortality monitoring system. The figure is the highest since the Carlos III Health Institute began tracking heat mortality in 2015, eclipsing the previous record of 4,789 deaths set in 2022.

Of this year's toll, 2,147 deaths occurred in August alone, with another 2,025 recorded in July, as back-to-back heatwaves pushed mainland Spain through its joint-hottest month since 1961, according to the national weather agency AEMET, cited in reporting on the record toll. Temperatures regularly climbed into the mid-40s Celsius (113°F) this summer, with June and July averaging nearly 3°C above normal.

Who is dying, and why

The data paints a grim demographic picture: 5,048 of the deaths — nearly all of them — were people aged 65 and older, and those over 85 alone account for 62% of the total. Women made up 60% of the fatalities. Health officials say most of the excess deaths trace back to heart attacks and strokes triggered by the physical strain of the body struggling to regulate its own temperature during prolonged extreme heat.

Climate change, driven by humanity's burning of fossil fuels, is making the extreme heat spells that have afflicted Europe longer, more intense and more frequent.

The mortality spike came alongside one of Spain's worst wildfire seasons in years. A blaze in Ávila province in July burned more than 50,000 hectares and forced tens of thousands of evacuations, part of a wave of fires across Spain and neighboring France that NASA satellites tracked billowing smoke across the Iberian Peninsula. Economic damage from the summer's combined heat and fire crisis has been estimated in the billions of euros.

Spain's Ministry of Health has run a formal heat-prevention plan every summer since the catastrophic 2003 heatwave, which killed an estimated 13,000 people nationwide — activating alerts, cooling centers and outreach to elderly residents each year from May 15. Despite that infrastructure, this year's toll still surpassed every prior summer in the 11-year monitoring record, underscoring how much hotter — and more dangerous — Spanish summers have become.

The crisis is not yet finished. Meteorologists are forecasting a fresh push of hot air from North Africa this week, with temperatures expected to again top 40°C (104°F) across southern and western Spain into early September — meaning this year's already-record death toll could still climb before the heat season ends.