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Identifying what factors control fire severity in large fires is critical for understanding fire impacts and planning pre- and post-fire management. Here, we determined the role of pre-fire stand structure, directional topography, and burning conditions on fire severity in a large fire (12,697 ha) in Central Spain that burned a Pinus pinaster forest on July 2005. Fire severity was estimated using RdNBR based on Landsat 5 TM images. Forest stand structure was reconstructed by systematically sampling the burned area (n = 236). Burning conditions were established using weather information and a map of fire progression, based on which fire rate of spread and propagation direction were calculated. Topographic features in the direction of the fire-front were derived from a digital elevation model. Boosted regression tree (BRT) analysis was employed to relate each group of variables or the entire set to RdNBR. Fire …