How long did the Arette fire last?

Copernicus dates it between 16 February 2019 and 19 February 2019: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 690 hectares (6.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Arette (551 ha, 6.0 %); Lanne-en-Barétous (139 ha, 3.4 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.5 km of Arette. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 17.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class 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.

FR · France · 2019-02-16 → 2019-02-19

Arette fire, 16 February 2019 Arette, Lanne-en-Barétous

Out · last detection 18 Feb 2019, 12:51 UTC

The fire started on 16 February 2019 in Arette, France, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 690 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 2 municipalities.

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 (13.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 690ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 4days; 16 Feb 2019 – 19 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 16 Feb; 2019
Heat detections: 24; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 4; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 85MW; sum of detected power

Play back 18 Feb 2019

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Feb19 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

161718

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

18°high

50km/h · peak gust

24%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 69 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Arette 1,032 inhabitants · 4.5 km from the town where it started

551 ha reached on 15 Feb

6.0 %
Lanne-en-Barétous 481 inhabitants · 5.7 km from the town

139 ha

3.4 %

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 land67 %
Broadleaved forest33 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

ZEPA Haute Soule : massif de la Pierre Saint-Martin FR7212008
LIC Le Gave d'Oloron (cours d'eau) et marais de Labastide-Villefranche FR7200791
LIC Montagnes du Barétous FR7200749

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	Danger (FWI)
16 Feb	17.6 °C	25 %	49 km/h	Very low 4
17 Feb	17.8 °C	24 %	50 km/h	Low 6
18 Feb	14.7 °C	41 %	42 km/h	Very low 5
19 Feb	13.1 °C	49 %	17 km/h	Very low 3
20 Feb after	14.6 °C	51 %	24 km/h	Very low 4
21 Feb after	16.7 °C	49 %	22 km/h	Very low 4
22 Feb after	16.7 °C	42 %	25 km/h	Very low 4
23 Feb after	16.7 °C	45 %	30 km/h	Very low 4
24 Feb after	18.0 °C	49 %	25 km/h	Very low 4
25 Feb after	18.4 °C	47 %	23 km/h	Very low 5
26 Feb after	21.4 °C	33 %	29 km/h	Low 6
27 Feb after	23.3 °C	22 %	28 km/h	Low 9
28 Feb after	14.3 °C	63 %	36 km/h	Low 6
1 Mar after	13.8 °C	61 %	31 km/h	Very low 4

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 9 Feb 2019

After · 26 Feb 2019

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 21 February 2019 the air beside the fire reached 29 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 24: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak29 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1056 µg/m³

WHO 15

13141516171819202122232425

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 24Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Arette fire last?: Copernicus dates it between 16 February 2019 and 19 February 2019: 4 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 690 hectares (6.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Arette (551 ha, 6.0 %); Lanne-en-Barétous (139 ha, 3.4 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The closest fire to a town centre came within 4.5 km of Arette. That is the distance to the perimeter or nearest hotspot; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 17.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class 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

Sécurité civile ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112 · 18.

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.

Where it burned