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Arles fire, March 2023 Arles

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2023, 01:16 UTC

The fire started on 6 March 2023 in Arles, France, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 189 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Bouches-du-Rhône since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 3 in France in 2023, of 9.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.1 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
189ha
Copernicus perimeter
Duration
2days
6 Mar 2023 – 7 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
6 Mar
2023
Heat detections
10
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
6
Low · FWI index
Energy released
172MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Mar 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Mar7 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

67

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
31km/h · peak gust
42%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.3 mm on 11 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Arles 51,811 inhabitants · 20.1 km from the town where it started
    189 ha reached on 6 Mar
    0.2 %

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 land100 %

Natura 2000 protected area affected: 100 %

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)
6 Mar 14.9 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Low 6
7 Mar 13.5 °C 51 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 4
8 Mar after 16.1 °C 63 % 33 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 4
9 Mar after 16.3 °C 63 % 22 km/h 0.8 mm Very low 2
10 Mar after 18.1 °C 39 % 51 km/h 0.3 mm Low 10
11 Mar after 20.2 °C 59 % 59 km/h 1.3 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Feb 2023
After · 14 Mar 2023

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 4 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 41 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak41 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1047 µg/m³
Optical depth0.34
45678910
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 · 10Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in France ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Arles fire last?
Copernicus dates it between 6 March 2023 and 7 March 2023: 2 days between the first and last image with fire.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 189 hectares (1.9 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Arles (189 ha, 0.2 %).
Did the fire reach a town?
The closest fire to a town centre came within 20.1 km of Arles. 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 14.9 °C, humidity dropped to 42 % and gusts hit 31 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

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.