Articles 351 and 352 Spanish Criminal Code: Arson and Forest Fires (2026)

Articles 351 to 358 bis of the Spanish Criminal Code (CP) define the arson offences. They do not sit among the property offences: they belong to Title XVII, on offences against collective safety, and that placement explains their severity. Fire is punished not only for what it destroys but for the danger it creates for human life and for the natural environment. In the middle of the Spanish summer, when the risk of spread is at its highest and investigations intensify, it is worth knowing exactly what each provision punishes. As criminal defence lawyers specialised in arson and wildfire offences, we set out the offences, the penalties and the main lines of defence.

The Map of Arson Offences in the Spanish Criminal Code

The CP organises the matter in a series of graded provisions:

• Art. 351 CP: a fire that endangers people's life or physical integrity — the most serious offence.
• Arts. 352 and 353 CP: forest fires, with a basic offence and a list of specific aggravating circumstances.
• Art. 354 CP: setting fire to woodland or forest where the fire does not spread.
• Art. 355 CP: measures over the burnt land (no rezoning for up to 30 years).
• Art. 356 CP: burning non-forest vegetation with serious harm to the natural environment.
• Art. 357 CP: setting fire to one's own property where third parties are harmed or there is a risk of spread.
• Art. 358 CP: fires caused by gross negligence.
• Art. 358 bis CP: referral to articles 338 to 340 (protected areas, restoration and repair).

The structure mirrors that of the offence of mass destruction under article 346 CP: what matters is not the value of what burns, but the collective risk created.

Article 351 CP: Arson Endangering People

Article 351 CP punishes those who start a fire that entails a danger to the life or physical integrity of persons with 10 to 20 years in prison — one of the highest sentencing ranges in the entire Code. The provision itself contains a proportionality valve: courts may impose the penalty one degree lower in view of the lesser significance of the danger caused and the other circumstances of the case.

Its second paragraph draws the line with property offences: where no danger to life or physical integrity exists, the facts are punished as criminal damage under article 266 CP, which in its basic form provides 1 to 3 years in prison for damage under article 263.1 committed by means of fire. The practical gap is enormous — from a 3-year maximum to a 10-year minimum — which is why the existence and degree of the danger is the first battleground of any defence. You can read more about that boundary in our analysis of criminal damage under article 263 CP.

Articles 352 and 353 CP: Forest Fires and the Aggravated Offence

Article 352 CP punishes those who set fire to woodland or forest with 1 to 5 years in prison and a fine of 12 to 18 months under Spain's day-fine system. If the fire also endangered people's life or physical integrity, the case is punished under article 351, with a fine of 12 to 24 months imposed in every case.

Article 353 CP raises the penalty to 3 to 6 years in prison and a fine of 18 to 24 months where the fire is of particular seriousness because any of the following circumstances applies:

1. It affects an area of considerable size.
2. It causes major or serious soil erosion.
3. It significantly alters animal or plant life or affects a protected natural area.
4. It affects areas close to population centres or inhabited places.
5. It is started at a time when weather or terrain conditions significantly increase the risk of spread.
6. In any event, where it causes serious deterioration or destruction of the affected resources.

The same penalty applies where the offender acts to obtain an economic benefit from the effects of the fire. The fifth circumstance is particularly relevant in summer: starting a fire during an episode of heat, drought and wind can, by itself, turn a basic forest-fire offence into the aggravated one, with a 3-year minimum prison term.

Article 354 CP: Fire That Does Not Spread

Article 354 CP punishes setting fire to woodland or forest where the fire does not spread with 6 months to 1 year in prison and a fine of 6 to 12 months. It is an anticipated-danger offence that does not require any significant destruction.

Its second paragraph contains a key defence figure: the conduct is exempt from punishment if the fire fails to spread because of the voluntary and positive action of the person who started it. Someone who lights a fire and then puts it out, or manages to stop its advance through their own intervention, is not criminally liable under this offence. It is a rewarded form of active desistance that makes it essential to establish exactly what the person did between ignition and extinction.

Articles 355 to 357 CP: Burnt Land, Non-Forest Vegetation and One's Own Property

Article 355 CP targets the possible economic motive behind a fire: courts may order that the land classification of the areas affected by a forest fire cannot be modified for up to 30 years, restrict or suppress the uses previously carried out on that land, and place the burnt timber under administrative control. Burning a hillside is, in short, useless as a route to development.

Article 356 CP punishes burning non-forest vegetation — scrubland, stubble, riverbank vegetation — with 6 months to 2 years in prison and a fine of 6 to 24 months, but only where the natural environment is seriously harmed. That element of serious harm is essential and must be proven by the prosecution.

Article 357 CP covers setting fire to one's own property, punished with 1 to 4 years in prison where any of the following applies: an intent to defraud or harm third parties, actual loss or harm caused, a danger of the fire spreading to another person's building, trees or crops, or serious harm to wildlife, forests or natural areas. It is the provision applied, for example, to burning insured property in order to collect the payout.

Article 358 CP: Fires Caused by Gross Negligence

Not every investigated fire was started on purpose. Article 358 CP punishes anyone who causes one of the arson offences through gross negligence with the penalty one degree below the one provided for the corresponding intentional offence.

This is the offence at play in the most common summer scenarios: agricultural burns that get out of control, campfires and barbecues in high-risk periods or areas, cigarette ends, sparks from farm machinery, welding or clearing work. The defence operates on two fronts. First, whether the negligence was truly gross — a breach of the most elementary duties of care, assessed against the time of year, the fire-risk warnings and the administrative bans in force — because negligence below that threshold is not covered by this provision. Second, the causal link between the conduct and the point of origin of the fire, which almost always rests on the fire-cause expert report.

Article 358 bis CP: Protected Areas, Restoration and Repair

Article 358 bis CP makes articles 338 to 340 CP applicable to arson offences — three rules originally designed for environmental crime:

• Art. 338 CP: where the conduct affects a protected natural area, the penalties are imposed one degree higher.
• Art. 339 CP: courts will order, at the offender's expense, the measures needed to restore the disturbed ecological balance.
• Art. 340 CP: where the offender voluntarily repairs the damage caused, the penalty is imposed one degree lower.

For the defence, article 340 CP is a first-rate tool: voluntary repair — funding the restoration of the burnt area, compensating those affected — is not a mere generic mitigating factor but a mandatory one-degree reduction of the penalty. The connection between these offences and environmental protection is easier to see in our analysis of the environmental crime under article 325 CP.

Defence Strategies

1. Challenging the cause and origin of the fire: the fire-cause expert report (point of origin, accelerants, witnesses, weather data) is the decisive piece of evidence; a critical review can dismantle the hypothesis of intent.
2. Disputing the danger to people: without danger to life or physical integrity there is no article 351 offence, and the facts may be reclassified as criminal damage under article 266 or a forest fire under article 352.
3. Intent versus negligence: moving from intentional arson to gross negligence under article 358 means the penalty one degree lower; and if the negligence is not gross, the conduct falls outside the offence.
4. Spread and desistance: if the fire did not spread, the framework is article 354, and the offender's voluntary action to stop it can lead to a full exemption from punishment.
5. Contesting the aggravating circumstances of article 353: the size of the area, the erosion effects, the proximity to inhabited places or the weather conditions must be proven by expert evidence, not presumed.
6. Repairing the damage: voluntary repair triggers the one-degree reduction of article 340 CP (via article 358 bis) and the mitigating factor of article 21.5 CP.