Fire at Cordoba’s historic Mosque-Cathedral, icon of Andalusian heritage

A fire broke out on Friday, August 8, inside the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, alarming passersby near the historic site. The blaze was quickly brought under control thanks to the intervention of three firefighting teams who promptly arrived to contain the flames, according to the mayor of the Andalusian city, José María Bellido, as reported by Spanish media.

«There will be damage, but it will not reach the level of a disaster», Bellido assured, calling for «calm and tranquility».

The fire started at around 9:15 p.m. in one of the chapels in the Arcades of Al-Mansur, which was being used as a storage area for cleaning equipment typically used inside the mosque, whose origins date back to the 8th century AD.

?Vendredi soir, un #incendie s’est déclaré à la mosquée-cathédrale de #Cordoue ?? (la Mezquita de Córdoba), classée à l’ #Unesco. Les pompiers l’ont rapidement maîtrisé. pic.twitter.com/7aPaLnsxWq

— Yabiladi.com (@yabiladi_fr) August 9, 2025

According to EFE news agency, the blaze was sparked by the battery of a mechanical cleaning machine, likely due to an electrical fault. The flames quickly spread within the UNESCO World Heritage site, reaching parts of its rooftops.

Bellido noted that he had received «messages from all over the world» expressing solidarity, a testament to the mosque-cathedral’s historical and cultural importance.

This is the third fire in the monument’s history, following previous incidents in 1910 and 2001.

Built in 785 AD by order of the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman I, the mosque was converted into a cathedral in 1236 after the fall of Al-Andalus to the Kingdom of Castile.