Accous fire, February 2020 Accous
The fire started on 3 February 2020 in Accous, France, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 337 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.
This record is most likely a pastoral burn (écobuage) in the Pyrenees, not a forest fire. In winter, grassland and scrub are burnt to renew the pasture, and this fire does not appear in France's official forest fire database (BDIFF). That is why it is left out of the fire rankings.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Accous · 2019Escot · 2026Escot · 2025Arette · 2019
- Burnt area
- 337ha
- Copernicus perimeter
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Feb 2020 – 7 Feb 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 3 Feb
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 18
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 0
- Very low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 241MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
7 Feb 2020 · 241 MW · 18
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 11 Feb.
This area had burned before
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 234 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
Accous where it started337 ha reached on 7 Feb5.6 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
What burned
- Other natural land88 %
- Agricultural areas5.9 %
- Mixed forest3.6 %
- Broadleaved forest2.4 %
Natura 2000 protected area affected: 83 %
- LIC Massif de Sesques et de l'Ossau FR7200744
Natura 2000 sites (European Environment Agency, 2024 release) crossed by the perimeter.
Land cover inside the perimeter according to Corine Land Cover, as reported by Copernicus.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Feb | 18.4 °C | 34 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 4 Feb | 9.8 °C | 50 % | 53 km/h | 1.2 mm | Very low 0 |
| 5 Feb | 9.1 °C | 60 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 0 |
| 6 Feb | 12.6 °C | 28 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 7 Feb | 11.7 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 8 Feb after | 9.6 °C | 60 % | 25 km/h | 0.3 mm | Very low 2 |
| 9 Feb after | 12.7 °C | 45 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 10 Feb after | 13.9 °C | 66 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very low 2 |
| 11 Feb after | 8.9 °C | 80 % | 40 km/h | 2.9 mm | Very low 0 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 3 February 2020 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 19: 1.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 18Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 701 haEscotFebruary 2026 · 4 days · 13 km away
- 629 haEscotFebruary 2025 · 3 days · 13 km away
- 690 haArette15 February 2019 · 8 days · 17 km away
- 860 haSainte-Engrâce14 February 2019 · 10 days · 25 km away
- 1,172 haLarrau24 February 2026 · 7 days · 33 km away
- 1,316 haAussurucqFebruary 2026 · 7 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Accous fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 February 2020 to 7 February 2020 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 February 2020 to 6 February 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 337 hectares (3.4 km²). Official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Accous (337 ha, 5.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 18.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 2, class Very low.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of France (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Emergency number: 112 · 18
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 February 2020 to 6 February 2020. 18 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Probably a vegetation burn: not counted in the totals.
Where this data comes from
The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM5 (Open Data Commons Attribution License 1.0). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.