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Understanding the impact of fire requires detailed knowledge about where fires occur, how they alter landscape patterns, and precise calculations of fire regime parameters. In this work, a reconstruction of the perimeters of fires that occurred during 1970–1990 was made by means of aerial photographs aided by field inspection in a 14 km ×14 km study area located in the southern slopes of Sierra de Gredos (Central Spain). Yearly fire perimeters, topographic attributes (slope, aspect and elevation) and the forest territory limits were incorporated to, and analyzed by means of, a raster-based GIS. The perimeters of 75 fires ≥4ha were mapped, which were approximately 13% of the total number occurred but accounted for 95% of the area burned. During this time, nearly 33% of the forest territory was burned and 22% of it was burned twice or more. Burning was not random in relation to topography, either when …